When you’re writing for your business, you must proofread carefully to make sure no embarrassing mistakes are published. Even if you’re an excellent writer – and not everyone is – you might not be the best typist. Plus, many spell-check programs usually won’t catch errors that are correctly spelled homophones (such as they’re/their/there).
To keep your writing clear and error free, use these 5 easy proofreading tips:
1. Take a break. When you have finished the writing, walk away from it for a while. Sleep on it if you can. When you return with a fresh brain, you will be more alert and can more easily spot typos and other mistakes.
2. Tech first. Before you read it over yourself, turn up the grammar and spell check functions in your word processing program to the most formal settings, and run them. This will eliminate the most egregious errors. Sometimes this can also help fix formatting problems.
3. Print it out. When you have a piece of paper in front of you and are holding a pen to make corrections, it’s more likely you will catch little mistakes here and there.
4. Read it aloud. Sometimes the ideas in your mind don’t come out as clearly on paper as you might like. Reading your work out loud helps you hear confusing grammar errors.
5. Get another set of eyes. Oftentimes, the writer is just too close to the writing to be able to see mistakes that someone else might catch. Ask someone you respect and trust to look for misspelled words, typos, formatting mistakes, and grammatical errors.
The best person to ask to review your work is a professional. When in doubt, contact your Virtual Assistant. She or a member of her team can read through your important business documents and marketing materials and prevent mistakes from going out into the world.
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