quality

7 Proofreading Tips To Help You Proofread Effectively

So, you have written an article, an e-book or a thesis. However, proofreading is important to make sure there are no errors or mistakes in your work such as spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes.

It is a slow process but it is also an important process of writing especially if you are a professional writer.

Here are a few tips to help you proofread easily.

1. Get a reliable reference book especially on Grammar. Oxford is by far the best but you can check out other sources for reliable reference books.

2. Apart from checking spelling and grammar, there are other stuff to look out for such as heading and font sizes. Be sure to ask yourself, what you want to check before you start proofreading.

3. You might want to print out a copy of your work to proofread. Some people find it easier to proofread on papers. If you have a printer, print the material, proofread and correct using a red pen, if necessary.

4. Check the font sizes. Small font sizes will increase the chances of missing out the mistakes you make.

5. You might want to consider to hop around while reading. Read from the beginning until the end seems to be the perfect way to proofread but actually by hopping around, you can increase the chances of spotting mistakes especially wrong spellings.

6. Not everyone is keen on proofreading. It is a boring job (it is true!) because you have to spend so much time reading and spotting for any mistakes. However, someone has to do the job, and if you are not up for the challenge, find someone who is willing to do the job (with a price to pay). You can get a freelance proofreader through any freelance job sites.

7. Check again! Once you are done, read through the whole material again. It doesn’t hurt although you might not be in the mood for more reading (of the same material). Still, you have to do it to make sure you have a perfect copy before publishing (99.9% no mistake).

If you have any other proofreading tips, feel free to share with us.

Software For Article Ideas – What Happen To Our Own Ideas

Have you ever used an article idea software to generate ideas for your articles?

It is as if we have run out of ideas to write about.

A very good example of software available is known as Article Ideas. This software is produced by the same producer of Automatic Article Submitter software.

The idea of this software is to help you generate ideas about a certain topics that you want to write about.

You just need to key in a keyword of your topic and voila, you get a whole long list of information to write about.

Where do the software get all the information?

Apparently, it pulls in all the readable information from search engines.

So, just how effective it could be? Do you think this is a great way to write articles? What about the quality?

People are trying hard to sell copies of this software, especially in Digital Point.

Personally, I don’t see any harm in using Article Idea software to assist us in writing articles but…

What happen?

Maybe it is useful for article marketing but still, what happen to our own ideas that we generate from our brain?

Do we need to have everything generated from the software (i.e. : the latest technology) so that we no longer have to think? I believe that fiction or non-fiction writers will have to think hard about the plot, the characters and the word flow.

This is something that the software cannot do.

This also reminds me of how electronic tools are taking over human resource in terms of job placement (especially in factories – more than 50% of the production are fully automated by machines. Humans are only monitoring their progress).

In the end, what happened to those workers? The got fired!

The Solution…

My advice when it comes to writing your own articles, use your own brain.

Keep the software for your work related tasks (article marketing or similar tasks) but when you write for your own blog or writing a story, always use your brain to think.

Come to think again, this is also the best way to counter amnesia / schizophrenia.

Don’t let your brain sitting idle.

Client Management #1: When Clients Are Upset

However, don’t be disappointed.

Most common situation:

You are required to write an article based on a topic. However, your final work is not up to your client’s expectation.

Solution:

You need to communicate with your clients. Find out these:

  • what is wrong
  • how you can revise your work to meet their requirement

Then, work on your project. You might want to offer extra service as compensation. This is a simple gesture to make sure that your client is satisfied with your service (so that they are likely to hire you again, in the future!).

Have additional tips? Leave a comment.

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Photo credit: Bhernandez