7 Important Benefits of Proofreading

Proofreading is the act of correcting spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation, grammatical errors and other mistakes in a document, before it is published. Proofreading also fixes alignment and formatting oversights. It is the last stage before publishing.

There are many reasons why proofreading is essential to every piece of writing, and why writers should have their documents proofread. Here are 7 such reasons why proofreading is important.

Proofreading Corrects Silly Mistakes

There are some mistakes that are obvious to even a casual reader. An instance of such a mistake is: writing a phrase like “a piece of bred”, instead of “a piece of bread”. Such mistakes are easy to spot because they contain simple spellings and common knowledge.

This kind of unnecessary mistake can irritate the reader because it could have been caught and fixed during a perusal by a trained eye.

When mistakes like the one shown above abound in a document, the readers can assume that the writer is not detail-oriented or that the writer is not invested in the content creation process. Proofreading gets rid of such silly mistakes.

Proofreading Gives you Credibility

One way to present yourself as an expert or to show credibility on a topic is to write an insightful article or book loaded with well-researched facts and citations to back up your stance on your subject matter. However, if your book is full of spelling and grammatical errors, you are likely to lose a lot of credibility.

No matter how insightful your document may be, an error-laden text takes a chunk away from its credibility. Professional proofreading saves you from the loss of your credibility. It helps you communicate the profound ideas that could qualify you to be called an expert on your subject matter.

Proofreading Allows your Readers Focus on the Text

Wrong spellings and grammatical blunders are very distracting in a document. Readers buy and read books to enjoy their content, learn something new or get entertained.

Generally, people do not buy books or read articles to solve puzzles, except when they specifically look for books and sites with crossword puzzles and other kinds of puzzles and quizzes.

Poor spellings and long sentences without commas and other necessary punctuation make your text difficult to read. This makes readers struggle to make sense of your document.

Books that are difficult to read and understand are quickly abandoned, and readers usually do not go back to try and finish reading them.

Proofreading makes your book easy to read so that your readers get to the meat of your writing and easily grasp the idea you are passing across.

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Proofreading Makes you Come Across as Professional

Public image and perception are important. They are also difficult to change, once they have been formed. As soon as your book is out in the public domain, you cannot change how people receive and understand your content. The best time to influence how people perceive you and your intellectual work is before sending out your content to the public.

A book that is free from errors shows that you do not skimp on quality. So, before you put out any written content, it is important that you get an expert on proofreading to comb through your text to remove all mistakes that can cause you embarrassment.

Proofreading Helps you Convey your Ideas Accurately

Have you ever read something you wrote a long time ago, only to find out that you wrote one thing but meant another entirely different thing? Now, imagine if you had published that document with the unintended message.

Proofreading helps you ensure that you are saying exactly what you intend to say, and not something that has no semblance to the idea you want to convey to your readers.

For instance, writing “the place was back” instead of “the place was dark”. A mistake like this makes no sense and it also fails to communicate the atmosphere of the place in question.

It Shows That you Value your Readers

Besides knowing what you want to write, you should also know who is going to read what you will write. Knowing your audience and its peculiarities and taking that into consideration should come before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Putting yourself in the position of your readers is a good way to produce content that resonates with your audience.

Picture yourself reading your book for the first time as an unbiased reader. Did the first page of the book catch your attention? Did you notice a grammatical error on the very first page? Were you unable to understand the storyline because the plot was so disjointed? These are questions that you should ask yourself if you want to produce quality writing.

A well-proofread document shows your readers that you do not take them for granted. Proofreading makes reading easier and smoother for your readers, and this shows that you put them into consideration before churning out your content for consumption.

Taking the time and money to get your book proofread shows that you value your readers and their time and monetary investment in your content.  Being considerate about your audience also puts you in good standing with them and makes them look forward to your subsequent articles and publications.

It Saves you Money.

Even though many people think proofreading costs a lot, it costs far less than having to reprint your already published book, because of public outcry over the staggering amount of errors in it.

Getting it right the first time by hiring a professional proofreader to correct the mistakes in your manuscript saves you a lot of money.

Spelling errors and other writing mistakes lead to bad reviews which in turn lead to poor book sales. They also leave a dent in your credibility, and this also negatively affects your future book sales.

It is cheaper to get your book proofread at the manuscript stage. Recalling your book from the bookstores (whether online or in actual stores) would require you to get it proofread, reprinted, and republished.

You may also need to advertise that a second edition has been published, and still have people doubting if this edition will be any better than the first which was full of errors.

Second chances are rare; especially when you are dealing with the invisible public who may have already spread the word to their friends that your book is not worth reading.

Proofreading your book as soon as your manuscript is edited saves you a whole lot of stress and money.

It is important to have your manuscript proofread, before presenting it to the public. Proofreading helps you send your message as it is intended, and it saves you so much money.

It does not matter what format your written content will be published in, you still need to get it proofread by an expert.

RELATED POST 6 Differences Between Proofreading and Editing

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