Chat on Proofreading 1-25-08

‹gracepub›Step 1: Do not read
‹gracepub›Step 2: the most common mistakes are spaces before the quote marks at the beginning of a sentence and
‹gracepub›Missing quotes and periods
‹gracepub›Next, MANUALLY run spell check
‹gracepub›It is amazing, but manual spell check catches a lot of things that you can't see - and that auto won't
‹gracepub›like where there is no space after a period.Before the next sentence-
‹gracepub›you can also add words to it though manual(turn of "auto" spell check first)
‹gracepub›I usually add the character's name to the dictionary so that I don't 'find it'
‹gracepub›this has two advantages - if the writer spelled the name wrong - spell check will find it
‹gracepub›I also search words such as: form, too, two, a lot (alot)   
‹gracepub›its/it's
‹gracepub›because these words are often misused - now - I don't look through the ms for them
‹gracepub›I use 'find and replace'
‹gracepub›Also their and they're are often changed
‹gracepub›you're and your
‹gracepub›http://library.thin kquest.org/C0110291 /interact/lessons/m emorizepacket/spell ing.php
‹gracepub›this is my list of homonyms/synonyms
‹gracepub›I will leave this list open while going through the ms
‹gracepub›I may not run all of these - but let's say that I am doing a historical...I will run 'find and replace' to make sure
‹gracepub›Word hasn't changed heir to their.
‹gracepub›and I check then and than
‹gracepub›Now, here is the main trick.  I play Bejeweled for 10-20 minutes before I start. 
‹gracepub›This type of game 'wakes me up' so I can see things.
‹gracepub›Lose and loose and loss are often confused
‹gracepub›super and supper
‹gracepub›paid and said
‹gracepub›tried and tries...people often mix these up
‹Margie›Thanks Suz....this help a lot
‹TGWB›Hi
‹gracepub› hi
‹Margie› Hi TGWB
‹gracepub› we are discussing proofreading tonight
‹TGWB› How is everything going?
‹Margie› good
‹TGWB› Yeah, I need a few lessons on that, and finger exercises...
‹gracepub› so - if you use 'find and replace' then you eliminate all fo the common mistakes before you read the story
‹Margie› ok
‹gracepub› this cuts the amount of time needed to proofread
‹Margie› yes
‹gracepub› Remember - don't read.
‹gracepub› whe
‹gracepub›n you start to read, you slow down.
‹Margie› yes....that's my biggest hinderance
kims has joined the chat room.
‹gracepub› One thing pro proofeaders do is move from the bottom of a page to the top- this stops them from reading
‹kims› hola all
‹Margie› hi kim
‹TGWB› Hi Kim
‹gracepub› your mind has a computer chip in it - when you read, your brain actually works a couple words ahead and will tell
‹gracepub› you 'that word is suppose to be WHERE' so instead of seeing WERE - you see WHERE even though it isn't there
‹gracepub› Hey kim
‹gracepub› If you start from the bottom your chip will learn to skim words that are spelled right.
‹Margie› ok...I'll try that!
‹gracepub› Okay - who is a mom. Have you ever been vacuuming and stopped...after a second you realize that you 'saw' a pin or piece of glass on the floor?
‹kims› great idea -- never thought of such a thing
‹gracepub› I am sure that every mom has had this happen at least once.
‹Margie› yes...Suz, I have
‹kims› oh yeah -- lots of time
‹gracepub› Well - that is because your brain is trained to look for anomalies -
‹gracepub› you can train your brain to do that with words -
‹gracepub› and suprisingly - it only takes a few hours to train your brain.
‹kims› this is something that i have always been very good at... for some reason i can catch misspelled words
‹gracepub› So - you are moving from the bottom of the page, you're just relaxed, just skimming.
‹gracepub› you have already removed the homonyms and synonyms so you don't have to stop and see if they left the 't' off their and used heir
‹gracepub› The only place where there are missing periods is at the end of a paragraph - so once you see that one - you don't need to look for others
‹gracepub› check for an extra space before the first quote in a sentence.
‹gracepub› look for red lines from spell check - and you are done with that page
‹gracepub› Now - Another way to proofread is to use MSReader
‹gracepub› We have an advantage here because I have all the software needed to convert files - and it doesn't take me long
‹gracepub› so I can make them- but you can make them.
‹gracepub› Or, if you have Adobe reader, you can make your own files and have Adobe read them
‹gracepub› there are dozens of text to speech translaters on the net
‹gracepub› the good thing is that you don't need to focus on the file. You can have it running in the background while working on something else
‹gracepub› because you will 'hear' when the (stupid sounding) mechanical voice says the wrong word
‹gracepub› in fact - I find that the voices are very relaxing so a mistake is rather jarring.
‹gracepub› The next step to proofreading is to make it different.
‹gracepub› Do not use Word -
‹gracepub› I always convert to Adobe first.
‹gracepub› I will convert to adobe, and then proof from there
‹gracepub› everything is a little larger - or enough 'different'
‹gracepub› also - I don't have page breaks so I don't 'stop'
‹gracepub› any questions?
‹gracepub› http://library.thin kquest.org/C0110291 /interact/lessons/m emorizepacket/spell ing.php
‹gracepub› that is my list of homonyms/synonyms
‹Margie› this is really helpful to me
‹Margie› thanks
‹Margie› I've proofed lots of business letters/documents at work....
‹TGWB› So you remove the homonyms and synonyms and then proof the rest?
‹gracepub› When you work like this - you can proofread about 50 - 70 pages an hour - less than 1 minute a page
‹Margie› really speeds up the process
‹kims› wow
‹gracepub› TGWB - yes. Use 'find and replace' to check the individual words
‹gracepub› The thing to remember is that grammar needs to be fixed before you proofread
‹gracepub› you can never edit grammar and edit for typos - your brain will not effectively do double duty
‹Margie› good point
‹kims› boy I'll say-- grammar alone boggles the mind
‹gracepub› If you are proofreading - then it is not up to you to worry about whether you agree with the writer's prose.
‹TGWB› The mind can do a lot more than we give it credit for, but you are right, I never apply punctuation properly, it is my greatest flaw or was.
‹Margie› If you notice things that don't seem right with the grammar......do you mention it to the author?
‹gracepub› Kim - yes. One trick of many good writers is to have 5 to 10 sentence structure patterns and reuse those over and over
‹Margie› sometimes I'm not sure
‹gracepub› margie - no
‹gracepub› because there are 18 official styles of grammar in the USA alone- and the top 5 all contradict each other
‹Margie› ok
‹gracepub› AP uses semi colons to start lists. Chicago uses Colons
‹gracepub› AP uses semi colons between related sentences
‹gracepub› CHicago says this is wrong
‹gracepub› Chicago and Harvard allow modifyer clauses and phrases at the beginning of a sentence - AP says that is a mistake
‹kims› guess this is why some publishers TELL you up front which style manual they adhere to
‹TGWB› Yeah, I was studying using AP obviously...
‹gracepub› If you are writing for journalism fields then use AP
‹gracepub› if you are writing fiction - use Chicago
‹gracepub› www.dailygrammar.com and Barons are both very simple - almost flawless grammar styles
‹gracepub› that cannot be faulted by anyone....I tell writers to use those so they don't run into problems
‹Margie› good to know
‹TGWB› I never heard of them before
‹kims› i have bookmarked -- thanks!
‹gracepub› Barons? It is one of the top academic publishers
‹gracepub› Now - if you are a writer - and you are proofing. THen you need to do it in 2 stages
‹gracepub› First - you will go through looking for places where:
‹gracepub› 1. you put the subject of the sentence at the back
‹gracepub› 2. you started a word with a single word
‹gracepub› 3. You made a run on sentence (adding and or but doesn't fix this)
‹gracepub› 4. You used the same word more than once in a paragraph ie...
‹kims› explain number two please
‹gracepub› jill ran home as fast as she could. She jumped the fence, and ran over the hedge.
‹gracepub› You would take out or change the second ran.
‹TGWB› Yeah, I catch that one often but probably not often enough...
‹gracepub› The most common mistake is too many pronouns in a paragraph....it is often possible to reconstruct sentences, or be more in POV, to remove the pronouns.
‹kims› eww guuuuilllllty
‹gracepub› #2...finally, she found max. Although, she didn't believe him. Of course, she didn't want to go.
‹gracepub› does that explain #2?
‹Margie› so you are starting a sentence with a single word?
‹gracepub› yes -
‹gracepub› that is wrong
‹Margie› ok...makes sense
‹gracepub› another mistake is this:
‹kims› okay
‹gracepub› Reading a book, Jill relaxed.
‹gracepub› Correct: Jill sat back and opened to page one, letting the day's stress drain away.
‹gracepub› When you are doing this 'grammar' edit. I always tell writers to remove 10 words a page
‹gracepub› there are always 10 words on every page that can be removed without changing the meaning of a sentence
‹kims› i have found this to be true... editing is teaching me sooo much
‹gracepub› wrong: Jill was going to the kitchen when Mike called.
‹gracepub› right: Jill walked to the kitchen when Mike called.
‹gracepub› AT this stage I 'find and replace' or look for weak verbs:
‹kims› not that was going is wrong really, just that walked sounds more active?
‹gracepub› get, got, going, heard, saw, thought, had, was,
‹gracepub› weak verbs are always wrong in fiction writing ...not gramatically - but 'prose'
‹gracepub› that is where most writers have a hard time.
‹gracepub› There is 'editing grammar' and there is 'editing prose'
‹gracepub› most writers never learn the difference.
‹gracepub› in fiction writing - prose comes first....grammar second
‹gracepub› so - if making the sentence come alive breaks a grammar rule - then so be it
‹Margie› How many times do you say you look for "was"?
‹Margie› and then reject a ms?
‹gracepub› but, if writing in good grammar dulls the prose - then the 'good grammar' is wrong
‹gracepub› If I find 10 cases of was or had on the first 2 pages - then I will red flag it before sending it to Anne
‹Margie› ok
‹TGWB› As in telling a story some prose requires a certain flow for the words to have a melody and stick into the readers mind drawing pictures...
‹gracepub› right- but here is the problem. Bad grammar is never acceptable.
‹gracepub› So, when I am teaching Write Well...I tell students to go through a chapter.
‹gracepub› If they broke a grammar rule more than once every 5 pages...then they are not altering grammar to improve prose - but they are writing poorly
‹Margie› Is Write Well at WOC now?
‹gracepub› no
‹gracepub› but I am getting it up.
‹gracepub› We accepted 30 books and got them going. I am just now getting some breathing space
‹Margie› good.....I may take the course in my spare time lol
‹gracepub› Next: - at this stage, look for over use of ellipses, emdashes, exclamation marks,
‹gracepub› I have a rule - no more than 10 a ms
‹gracepub› of each
‹gracepub› that is right. Because many people use them so often that it becomes difficult to follow their dialogue.
‹Margie› ok
‹TGWB› But what if the character is extremely emotional?
‹TGWB› Hey!
‹gracepub› Any 'trick' like that - or a fragment are meant to STOP the reader and make them 'rethink' the current fact - to highlight it
‹gracepub› unless you want to make the character jarring, or make the reader start to dislike them - don't
‹kims› oh wow -- I seriously have some ellipsis to look at then -- eek
‹Margie› I'm so glad to know all of this
‹gracepub› like -in one story we published, the heroine was a bitch. So we had her use a lot of ellipses in a place where we wanted the reader to hate her...
‹kims› me too!
‹TGWB› It is a good point, you don't often see too much of that type of punctuation, but as required by the scene.
‹gracepub› but - for the most part, I limit the use of these
‹kims› i thought ellipses were okay for trailing thoughts
‹kims› and em dashes for words being cut off in dialogue
‹kims› i am ellipses challenged though i use them in every form of writing even this...
‹gracepub› Kim - yes, but what happens is that they are so over used that the reader is left feeling jarred because they keep reading dialogue that stops...then they are forced into narration that
‹gracepub› has nothing to do with what they were reading
‹kims› i got ya