The Art of Proofreading (from the archives)
I thought about writing this newsletter about the Elizabeth Gilbert mishegas, but I find it too depressing, and there’s not really a take on it that isn’t absurdly obvious. And I’ve been asked some questions about proofreading recently, so I thought I’d bump up this gem from the archives, also an excerpt from my book about publishing.
During my two decades as a college professor, I commented on scores of student essays. I did so confidently and authoritatively. I was never one to focus on grammar and punctuation too too much—for me, the ideas should always take precedent—but I would circle and annotate all the errors I found.
When I started editing professionally, I quickly lost my nerve. I know myself enough to know I would never be a great proofreader. One thing I am not is fastidious, so I could not be trusted to proof a lengthy, professional publication, as opposed to a research paper for ENG 404.
Michael Jauchen was my answer. I don’t even remember how Michael and I met, but he has edited and proofed my writing, as well as Belt Publishing books (he is our Senior Editor), for years now. Mike is quick, reliable, funny, and incredibly talented.
For this newsletter, and also for my book about how publishing works, I interviewed Michael. Think you know everything about proofreading already? There’s a quiz at the end!
A lot of people think they can proofread, but usually they catch the most common errors while missing other ones. What would you say is the kind of error that a 'good' proofreader will catch that another professional--a writer, professor, even an editor--might miss? Or maybe it's a matter of mindset, of how you read, and not knowledge of errors per se?
Like you suggest, I think it's largely a matter of mindset. Proofreading is its own particular kind of reading--much slower, much more technical, more machine-like. You're certainly thinking about what the text is saying, but your mind (at least my mind) is focused more intently on every detail involved in how the text is saying it. You know how MSWord will allow you to show formatting marks, which reveals all the pilcrows and leader marks in a document? To me, proofreading is kind of like looking at a text in a similar way. Every single mark on the page (and even every single empty space) has to be looked at and scrutinized. When I proofread, I usually blow up the text to about 250% of its original size, which helps me look at it microscopically. But when I do that, reading for the how of the text kind of supersedes reading for the what of the text (which is hopefully what other editors have covered already).
To me a great proofreader is someone who's able to correct all the individual errors that might crop up (spelling, punctuation, etc.) in discrete instances, but she's also able to think more broadly about consistency across the entire manuscript. The longer the manuscript, the more likely it is that the author didn't write it in one sitting. You'd be surprised at the ways an individual's punctuation use or their capitalization of a certain word (like "Mayor" or "mayor") can change over time. And by the time a manuscript's ready to be proofread, it's also probably been edited a few times, so it's likely that multiple editors have had their hands in the mix as well. In that kind of situation, all kinds of errors and inconsistencies can crop up across a manuscript--differences in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, chapter titles, spacing. The really great proofreader is the person who can read with a sharp eye for the details at the individual sentence level, but also for the consistency of the whole, which can be much more difficult. This involves errors like when a writer writes "St. Louis" on page 4 and then "Saint Louis" on page 196. Even if those words just show up those two times in a manuscript, and even if both of those individual instances could be correct on their own, the great proofreader will have an alarm that goes off to make them consistent across the entire manuscript.
What are the most common errors you correct when proofing a manuscript that has already been vetted by the writer, editor, and designer?
Oh, you really see a little of everything--spelling errors, slip-ups with possessives, hyphens instead of dashes. You'll also see lots of discrepancies in the way people refer to particular proper nouns that can vary widely (is it the "L" train or the "el" train in Chicago? Or is it just the "El"?). Those instances aren't really errors as much as they're just usage differences. It's not a matter of correcting, it's just a matter of making them consistent.
It's also kind of fun to pick up on little writerly tics that individual authors have in a manuscript. Seeing those can give you little flashes of insight into the really idiosyncratic ways that individuals use language, and that's always been fascinating to me.
Probably the most common type of correction I make has to do with comma usage. That's because commas are used so widely and because the rules about them vary a lot between the different style guides. Also, I just don't think many people want to dedicate the brain space to thinking about the difference between restrictive or nonrestrictive clauses. They just go with what feels right. I don't blame them. I like dedicating brain space to those kinds of things, which is partly why I do this job.
After the initial design phase, you might also see discrepancies between the titles in a Table of Contents and the titles within the manuscript or the titles in a header. Usually that's a just a product of designing the actual interior of the book while the writing may still be getting finalized. That's just the timeline of how publishing a book works, and that's why publishers don't want reviewers to quote an ARC. It's just not the final product. Those discrepancies aren't a big deal, but they're something to definitely double-check.
What do you consult when you are unsure about a rule?
For the dictionary, it's the latest edition of Merriam-Webster (and by the way, if you're writing for an American audience, be sure you're using a dictionary of American English). I always keep a style guide handy when I'm proofing, whether it's Chicago Manual of Style, AP, or an individual house style guide (like Belt's). All of those tend to be pretty good and they give you the basic guidelines on how to proceed with the issues that crop up the most--spelling out numbers, capitalization, etc. The CMOS online also has tons of forums where people ask very specific questions and then other people debate and sort out issues that the CMOS might not address sufficiently. I really love forums like that because you can see how the sausage gets made--it's people discussing the intricacies of how to make language as clear and consistent as it possibly be, which to me is pretty cool. In the rare cases where a writer might be using a term that hasn't made it into the dictionary yet--things like "Finstagram," for example--a comparative Google search of the different possible forms of the word will usually give you a good sense of which form of the word is used more commonly.
How did you learn how to proofread?
I had the requisite basic grammar classes as an undergrad and graduate student, but I kind of stumbled into proofreading. In graduate school, and I don't really remember how this happened initially, I started proofreading dissertations by other grad students and scholarship by professors (often non-native English speakers who were working in the sciences) for a little extra money. That gave me some great training with different style guides and conventions. I teach writing now, so I teach grammar and I grade essays a lot. That requires me to really know my grammatical conventions and to be able to explain those conventions clearly, which is good training for proofreading as well. I also work as the book reviews editor for a small magazine, so I edit and proofread work that way, too.
I also just happen to be the kind of person who will read a style guide for fun--not that I read them for pleasure, but I find them really interesting. And I try to stay up on the conversations about stylistic changes and conventions that are going on. But in some ways, my training has been fairly informal. It's really just been a matter of reading thousands and thousands of words, carefully reading and studying grammar and style, and (hopefully) getting better at catching errors. That might mean that I'm pretty idiosyncratic with my proofreading, but it seems to be working okay for me and the clients I work with.
What do you wish writers and editors would do before they send you a mss?
I think stripping the manuscript of formatting is good advice--that's of course if you're sending the manuscript to me before it's been to the designer. But having the text in a normal, consistent font with a normal consistent style just makes the read-through cleaner and easier.
Also, anything you can do on your own to aim for consistency across the manuscript is really helpful to a proofreader. If you even have a quick chat with your editor about what style guide the press uses before you really start writing a book, that can be helpful in those early stages (for example, you won't be writing the whole book in AP style when it will eventually be published in CMOS).
The more I can look at various things in your manuscript and have a clear sense of what you're intending, the easier my job is. For example, if you have section breaks in your manuscript, don't signify those with a # sign in one chapter and *** in another. When stuff like that gets to my desk, that causes me to wonder if you were trying to signify different things with those different signs.
Speaking of consistency, use the name you'd like to go by professionally in every instance in the manuscript. Title page, bio, etc. Make sure it's the same name.
Also, one space after a period.
Also, to anyone who still does this (for whatever reason), stop using the Enter key as a carriage return unless you're starting a new paragraph.
Also, stop using the space bar to indent your paragraphs or block quotes.
Also, serial commas forever.
What are the most satisfying and/or fun parts of proofreading?
For me, there's a genuine pleasure that comes from looking at a manuscript so microscopically, to be the person who considers every comma, every dash, every apostrophe, every word, and ensures that everything is in its proper place. In that sense, I think proofreading appeals to my own personal sensibilities--I'm hard-wired as a person who likes order, organizing, process, and logistics. Proofreading has also always been a great way for me to immerse myself and learn (and enjoy!) the richness and complexity of language--the specific and tiny ways that an incredible amount of complex meaning can be conveyed just through black marks and blank space on the page. That's still kind of magical to me every time I think about it. And being part of the process of making that meaning as clear as possible to a reader is really satisfying. I had a writing teacher once who always talked about giving your ideas a "clean vehicle" when you're writing. What she was getting at was the drive all writers have to express themselves exactly--to put the right words in the exact right order. That goes for the things writers and developmental editors do in the early stages of creating a book, but it also goes for what copy editors and proofreaders do. It's about getting things so perfect and so right that the author's original thinking can be communicated with absolute clarity and exactness. My ultimate goal in proofreading any manuscript is to make it so perfect that the reader has no idea that I've been there at all. If I'm doing my job correctly, I completely disappear.
Below are three screen shots from Belt’s Midwest Architecture Journeys Michael proofed after they had been typeset, right before they go to the printer. Can you figure out what he wrote in those little yellow bubbles?
