Is there a standard or strategy for efficient proofreading that's widely used, so I can practice it?
I picked up English Grammar For Dummies two years ago and thoroughly educated myself on the theory, but I'm still not confident that my writing is free from inconsistencies in punctuation style, for example inconsistent use of semicolons versus em dashes, inconsistent decision-making on comma use, etcetera. I want to be able to repair these kind of amateurish problems in an efficient and formulaic way, so that my texts are up to publication-quality standard.
Some sort of manual/checklist subscribing to a major style guide reminding the user to 'check all these elements', to hold next to me while I practice proofreading my text, would be basically what I'm after.
If not, what's the best way to practice proofreading and editing? It'd also be a useful freelance skill to be able to proofread/edit other people's stuff, too.
>>7840220
Chicago manual of style is the one most journos use I believe. Remember this is designed for newspapers etc. so not all of the pointers will be appropriate for things like novel writing.
>http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/contents.html
>>7840232
Do you know if that applies to the British writing sectors too? Forgot to mention that I'm British.
>>7840235
I assumed you were American. I think the major dictionary producers (Oxford, Cambridge, Collins etc.) also have their own versions. You might have to buy a hard copy though.
Here's another quite useful online-based resource:
>http://www.thewriter.com/what-we-think/style-guide/
>>7840251
>http://www.thewriter.com/what-we-think/style-guide/
Now that is very useful. I can refer to style guides of course, but I'm looking to try and streamline the process, both so I can do it faster and I can commit it to habit faster, which is what that does. Thanks for that link.
I'm interested in this as well.
I proofread strictly for non-fiction academic articles. They are subsequently submitted for peer review. Because of this, making the paper easy for the reviewer, thus increasing chances of acceptance, is import. With this in mind, I typically try to make sentences less convoluted and more direct.
For example:
> We propose the first study to compute the differences across subjects of various species of dogs.
vs.
> We propose the first study computing differences both across subjects and between species of dogs.
In this example I:
* Replace roundabout verbs ("to compute") with more direct version ("computing").
* Try and make prepositional phrases more "flow" better: don't just tack on a bunch of qualifiers to the subject at the end of the sentence
Other stuff to look for:
* Use hyphenation to make the application of adjectives clear (wet-dream poems, vs wet dream poems).
* Use hyphenation across "and" (scent- and sight-dependencies)
* Break up long sentences (use: ;, :, . ---, ()), e.g., "We did ABC which subsequently allowed us to do XYZ" versus "We did ABC. Subsequently, we did XYZ."
* Proper use of a comma to tack on additional strictly unnecessary information
* Use non-breaking space after an non-sentence ending period (e.g., after U.S.A.)
Again, this is mostly because of the domain: the goal is to limit confusion. I love the long "run on" sentences of authors like Proust. In fact, and I'm digressing, Proust is a great person to copy when it comes to describing complex things.
>>7840573
P.S. I didn't proof read my own post.
Fuck.
