Journal logo

How Proofreading Techniques Help to Improve Writing Skills

Get to know different proofreading techniques that may help to change your writing for the better.

By Tiffany HarperPublished 5 years ago 9 min read
Like

The act of proofreading is a delicate practice that demands focus, patience, and technique. As a writer, editor, or business professional, you should be able to master your communication. This involves two types of communication: written and verbal.

Writing is an essential tool that we tend to use every day in order to communicate, work, inspire, educate, persuade, work, and so on. Our writing defines us because writing reflects one’s personality, knowledge, skills, and education.

We can impress through writing, we can reach our goals, and we can get what we want. Only if we know how to ask for it, how to say it, and how to explain it.

Proofreading is essential.

“Proofreading is a very important part of good writing. As writing is a process of multiple steps, you must treat proofreading as a distinct yet highly important element that’s part of the same the writing process.”—George Clark, Team Leader at Best Essays

Now, regardless of your relationship with proofreading, you should acknowledge its importance in all of your written communication.

When you send a business email, your communication must be flawless, and it must achieve a purpose. Every mistake you make will cost you something. (Reputation, opportunities, business leads, etc.)

Mistakes can be prevented by proofreading, which is the act of ensuring the quality of your communication.

If you’re running a business or personal brand, your content is the single most impactful element that can shape the faith of your brand. Write and proofread well, and your image will be well-preserved while rising. If you’re an employee, your communication will influence the chance of creating your perfect career.

If you’re a college student and you’re writing unclear sentences in your college papers, your grades will have to suffer. If you have to apply for a job after college, poor and neglected writing won’t help you either.

If you want to steal a girl’s heart and your instant messages are full of grammatical errors, your poor writing is preventing you from getting laid.

So, as you may notice, proofreading is an essential practice that we mustn’t neglect or avoid. It protects us from damaging our reputation, opportunities, and status.

How can proofreading improve your writing?

Since proofreading is a practice we should perform every time we communicate in written text, the fact that it helps us improve our writing skills is definitely a worthy and rewarding benefit. After all, paying attention comes with a positive price!

Your writing skills will significantly improve as you keep practicing proofreading.

Let’s explore this statement by having a closer look at how exactly going through your work (or another person’s work) and optimizing it is going to make you a better writer.

Proofreading helps you prevent future mistakes.

“The best benefit of proofreading and writing improvement purposes is the accumulated knowledge and expertise it grants you, resources that’ll help you prevent future mistakes.” —Anna Bolding, Chief Editor at Essay Geeks

A writer is as great as his writing, so by consistently eliminating mistakes from the “writing routine,” he can improve the overall quality of his content and information. This goes the same with every person—a consciously acknowledged mistake (found through proofreading) is a well-learned mistake that will not be repeated in your future writing.

Proofreading improves creativity.

Proofreading, like writing, is a practice that demands creativity. A poorly written sentence can be easily modified or replaced entirely. Both of these operations require a certain degree of creativity.

By consistently putting your mind at work, challenging yourself or other writers, your creative juices will spark every time.

Proofreading improves problem solving skills.

Proofreading has a lot to do with problem-solving. Something’s not right there, so a solution must be found.

For example, a professional paper writer who proofreads a student’s work has to first identify what the student has meant, how can the error be fixed, and what additional words can be added. This is a problem, and it needs to be solved.

Every time you solve problems, you’re improving your problem-solving skills, which in turn will help you become a much more experienced writer. Putting words and sentences together will be done with ease, and whenever something is wrong, the solution will be immediately reachable.

Proofreading improves analytical skills.

“Your analytical skills will help you develop better content and communicate better with your recipients. When you’re proofreading, you’re using many cognitive abilities to optimize something that it’s already there.” —Joseph Channel, Expert Proofreader at Assignment Holic

Of course, you must first analyze the work that you’re editing, and you should clearly understand “where it’s coming from.” Your analytical skills will also improve your writing, as the result of your analytical proofreading will help you stay away from future errors.

Proofreading enhances your concentration.

Proofreading demands a lot of focus, same as writing. Concentration is the tool that every brilliant mind uses to perform various activities, such as meditation, work, writing, learning, and so on.

As you keep proofreading your work or another’s, you’ll practice the art of concentration. The more you are able to concentrate on one thing, the better results you’ll get.

So, when you write, you must be concentrated. You must be present and aware of this one single activity and pay attention to nothing else. Proofreading, just like writing, helps you accomplish that!

Proofreading gives you confidence as a writer.

When you’re editing your own mistakes, again and again, you’ll soon realize that you’re getting better. That is often a great boost of motivation for most of us, regardless of our careers and responsibilities. Consistent proofreading will show us our real-time progress, giving us confidence and strength to keep improving our writing.

For example, if a professional is offering assignment help services, the act of proofreading can show him the most common mistakes people do, it improves his knowledge as a professional, and it skyrockets its confidence as a writer and proofreader.

Of course, any professional dissertation help or writing service will always dispose of professional proofreaders who have already convinced themselves of their value.

Proofreading helps you optimize the final work.

If you’re a student that has been asked to deliver several important custom essay papers, how will you proceed?

How many drafts will you have? How many times will you proofread? How will you treat your papers?

By proofreading your work more than once, by reading it with fresh pair of eyes (right after you wake up), and by polishing it more than once, you can eliminate even the tiniest mistakes and significantly improve the quality of your final work.

Proofreading other people's work improves vocabulary.

If you proofread someone else’s work, you can improve your vocabulary. Since vocabulary is an essential aspect that defines a writer, a person, and a brand, you’re likely to benefit from this intelligence.

“Every person uses different words and terms to give birth to their message. If you proofread a piece of text and learn one new word, you’ll be able to apply it to your own writing and thus improve the diversity of your language and expression.” —Paul Georges, CEO at UK Best Essays

Proofreading improves your patience.

Patience is a rare trait that very few people possess today. Everybody is in a hurry, and time is not sufficient. Another important disempowering tendency of many people is the urge for immediate pleasure, which instantly counterattacks the ability to be patient.

The act of proofreading is often a time-demanding process that helps you make peace with yourself. It helps you stay focused only on one thing, and it doesn’t allow you to become rushed. If you hurry, you’re missing the point of proofreading, or at least the point of effective proofreading.

A patient individual will also be a patient writer, which I believe that is very important. The quality of any written text is defined by the personality, knowledge, and skills of the person who creates it. Patience is a key factor!

Proofreading makes you a more complete writer.

Overall, proofreading helps you improve vocabulary, fix and never repeat mistakes again, and improve a lot of mental skills and traits such as patience, problem-solving, creativity, discipline, confidence, and so on.

We can easily conclude that proofreading makes you a more complete writer and a more complete person.

Proofreading constantly improves your writing knowledge and skills.

Writing is both an art and a skill. It improves in time, through practice, through commitment, and often demands a great deal of pain. Indeed, great writers go through a great deal of pain in form of disappointments, perfectionism, overwhelming states, and so on.

In return, their writing knowledge and skills improve over time, giving them less hustle in the future. The more you proofread texts the more you improve your writing knowledge and skills, so do it as frequently as possible!

Now did that make sense?

Let us now move on to our next question. How can you improve the effectiveness of your proofreading, so you can ultimately improve your writing skills faster?

As I’ve mentioned in the introduction of this post, I believe that focus, patience, and technique are three of the most important aspects of effective proofreading (and writing).

Strategies and Tips to Improve Your Proofreading

Let’s quickly explore several strategies, tips, and tricks that’ll help you skyrocket your proofreading (and writing) skills without a lot of hustle.

Eat healthily and exercise.

For your mind to be able to focus, you need to feed it properly. Healthy and balanced nutrition plus consistent exercise is the key combination to achieve perfect cognitive health and power.

Prepare before proofreading.

Proofreading is a serious process, so treat it likewise. You should prepare before you get to work by doing some breathing exercises, meditating, or simply by relaxing. Prepare a tea, listen to some peaceful music, pet the dog, and get started. You should prepare not to get distracted by identifying and preventing the possible distractions in your mind.

Don’t let words slip.

When you’re proofreading, you are not allowed to let words slip. Our mind is used to connect the dots, and so, the chance of missing out certain words can be often significant.

A word that has slipped away is a potential error that has remained unnoticed. Therefore, proofreading more than once is a good way of keeping your proofreading perfect.

Read the text backwards.

A good way of ensuring that you’re not missing any words is to read the text backwards. Take every sentence, from end to beginning, and read them each with much patience and focus. This way, you will not be distracted by what comes next, and your mind won’t instantly jump to conclusions.

Take regular breaks.

Any work that demands intense concentration requires regular breaks. So I use the Pomodoro Technique, as it suits me best. It involves 25 minutes of intense work, followed by a five-minute break. Every writer, proofreader, or person is different, and so are the concentration habits. Take regular breaks to preserve your health, energy, and focus.

Consider printing the text.

In the past, I’ve worked as a freelancer for the best essay service in my country. My colleagues taught me a very nice technique, which involves printing the text that I’m about to proofread and correct it using my pen or pencil.

This is a brilliant proofreading strategy because it makes the entire proofreading experience different. It enhances it, as the words that are read from a paper are more digestible and easier to follow.

Takeaways

Proofreading is a very important process that should be made a habit. Your written communication influences the outcomes of your queries and requests, it helps you solidify your status as a professional, and allows you to become a competent individual who actually “knows what he’s talking about.”

Your proofreading habits will significantly contribute to the progress of your writing expertise, meaning that you’ll be able to optimize every activity that requires written communication. Start improving your proofreading skills right now, and you’ll thank yourself for it later.

art
Like

About the Creator

Tiffany Harper

Tiffany Harper began her career as a journalist in the educational publishing house. Now she works as an experienced expert writer, mostly in education, business, and technology area. Please, contact her on Twitter.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.