Sunday 19 October 2014

Quality Proofreading Can Make Or Break Your Next Piece Of Copy

By Dominique Martin


Writing all of the promotional materials and copy you need in order to adequately run a marketing business takes more than just putting a lot of words on a page. These pieces may be articles, blogs, white papers or short advertising pieces. They may even be Facebook pieces or Twitter feeds. The spelling and grammar has to be right and, if not, can be viewed as amateurish. The need for a quality proofreading technician is a very real concern.

There are two categories of review processes that can be used at this point. One of them is the proofreader. It is their skills that will ensure everything that is written makes sense and is punctuated properly. They will only work with the information presented in the piece, not insert any other data. That task is for an editor.

An editor will be someone who is knowledgeable in the same field you are in. They will be looking for all appropriate data, charts and statistics that will create a well balanced piece. They may bring in additional information that you missed or develop some points more effectively. They will, of course, bring these to your attention before this is done.

Back to the proofreaders you can access easily, no matter where you live. San Diego, CA has many of these and they are easy to work with. These professionals will know all of the many grammar rules as well as spelling issues. The sound alike words that are used and spelled differently will be part of their knowledge base. The commas, colons and semi colons and when they are supposed to be used are their trade marks.

Perfecting the tenses of each clause is one thing a proofreader can help you with. Writing a first person article is one thing. Changing it half way in to a second or third person singular or plural will often occur without knowing it. This depends on the subject and how complicated it becomes. This will really confuse your readers and cause them to click away from this in frustration if allowed to go uncorrected.

Certain types of writing must follow certain formats. An article will be more formal than a blog posting. A blog post will require a certain give and take as far as what information should be inserted and what can be left out. This is often done to lure the reader to check back, next time, to get an explanation or further amplification of something.

Some of the things that make the piece look like it was written by someone who does know what they are doing are the broken live links. Misused words and general run on sentences that make any thing look bad should be allowed to stay. A proofreader will make you look good simply by making your piece read well.

When searching for a proofreader, whether in San Diego, CA, or anywhere else, look for someone who has performed this task for many others in the recent past. Look on their website or printed material and see if their product reads as well as it should. Look for any of the problems associated with bad writing and then identify whether they have produced work for your particular niche or industry.




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