We all make mistakes, of that there is no doubt. But errors in copywriting can be costly. Typos and incorrect or missing words can detract from the reputation of your business. Fortunately, there are a couple of quick and easy proofreading tricks you can use to catch mistakes before you post or print: reading aloud and from back to front. The value in these techniques lies in their ability to disrupt the brain’s processing of text, making it easier for you to see even the smallest errors.
Do People Still Proofread?
This is a legitimate question in our era of automated spelling and grammar checks. In the main, yes, people still proofread but maybe not as effectively as they could.
Proofreading is typically the final step in the editing process, which includes detailed reviews of things like structure, flow, tone, grammar and spelling. A proofread is a final pass to catch any little mistakes that may have been overlooked during editing.
If you own a small business and publish a lot of short copy like blog posts or product pages, a full edit might seem excessive. Instead you might rely on the correction tools in your writing app and a quick skim of the text, but neither of those options are ideal.
Machines Can’t Catch Everything
Spell check can flag the most obvious mistakes, like the infamous “teh” instead of “the.” Grammar checkers can also catch a lot of non-spelling errors, like using “in” when you mean “on”. But these tools are not foolproof. They can miss typos that create actual words, like “the” instead of “then,” as in this example from my recent edit of a cake recipe:
- “Cool completely the cut tops to even them as needed.”
Nor do writing apps generally catch context errors like the one below, also from a recent editing job, where both sentences are technically correct but one makes more sense than the other:
- “Referrals come in weekly and are accessed and prioritized.”
- “Referrals come in weekly and are assessed and prioritized.”
Our Eyes Don’t Catch Everything Either
While much research has been done into how people process writing and make sense of it, an early-aughts meme turned into a widely accepted theory about how we make meaning out of words. Its claim: as long as the first and last letters of a word were in place, people could understand it even if its internal letters were jumbled. (You can read more about that here.)
There is a lot more nuance to how people process the written word than that theory implies, but in broad strokes it’s true that people can usually suss out meaning even when words are misspelled, misused or missing.
It’s like our brains have their own auto-correct mechanism that accurately predicts meaning based on context and visual cues.
The TL;DR of it: we don’t need to read every letter or word to get the gist.
So if we proofread by skimming text, we’ll get the meaning without actually processing all of the individual words or letters. This is how mistakes slip by.
Proofreading Tricks That Work
To proofread successfully and catch mistakes both we and our computers have left behind, we need to disrupt our brain’s processing.
Linear re-reading of our own text will not cut it. We need to change the senses we use by reading out loud and challenge our brains to assess each word by reading backwards.
- Read Out Loud. Reading your text out loud helps you identify any awkward phrasing or incorrect words. The key here is to read slowly and be sure you say every word. Things that don’t belong will become obvious in a hurry.
- Read Backwards. Reading backwards removes the context cues that our brains use to assume meaning, making errors in spelling stand out.
It can be tough to proofread your own work. Because you are so familiar with the content, your eyes tend to gloss over small mistakes–and your brain naturally makes that process easier. Using proofreading tricks to interfere with your brain’s assumptions about meaning can make it easier to find and correct errors.
Photo of book with glasses and magnifying glass by Wallace Chuck at Pexels.