How To Give Your Editor Your Best Final Draft
As a writer preparing your manuscript for eventual publication or for submission to an agent, completing your first draft is just the first step. It is essential to hire a professional editor for your manuscript’s final draft, but even before that, you can really help the process along when you do thorough proofreading of your own manuscript first.
Professional editing is not the same as proofreading. Professional book editors have specialized skills and significant experience working with writers and offering services that improve the overall quality of your writing, help your writing become more clear, remove errors and inconsistencies, and ensuring that your writing will be the best it can be.
Proofreading is usually the last step before publication and printing of your book and is a final check for typos, any missed spelling and grammar mistakes, and consistency in formatting, etc. As the writer of your manuscript, however, you can do an initial proofreading pass before you send your draft to your editor.
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What to look for when you self-proofread
Although you may not be a spelling or grammar expert, there are still ways you can proofread your own manuscript before you submit your manuscript to your professional editor. Watching for these common errors will save time for your editor and make you and your editor aware of any problems that may arise before the next step.
Spelling mistakes: not only “regular” spelling mistakes, but also mistakes in the spelling of names, places, and irregular words and phrases in your manuscript.
Grammatical errors: these are more difficult to spot, so it is important to do more than one proofreading pass so that it is easier for you to find amy mistakes.
Punctuation: common punctuation errors include misusing semicolons and commas, putting the question mark or exclamation point outside of the quotation marks in American English, and misusing quotation marks in dialogue.
Inconsistencies: there are several ways your manuscript can be inconsistent. Not only does the English language contain many words that can be spelled differently, but people often confuse homonyms (words that are spelled alike but have different meanings), homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings), and homographs and heteronyms (words that are spelled alike but have different pronunciations and different meanings. It is important to also check for consistencies in using hyphens and whether numbers are written out with words or written out with symbols.
Keeping these proofreading components in mind while you proofread will help you to improve your manuscript and save your editor a lot of time.
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Here are ten ways to complete an effective self-proofread.
Put some time distance between the time you finish your manuscript and the time for your self-proofreading effort. Approach your manuscript with a “fresh set of eyes,” you will see things that you didn’t see before.
Run an initial spell check. The spell check app is useful, but it is not foolproof. The free version of Grammarly™ is good, too, but it only goes so far. Use these judiciously as only part of the first step in your proofreading activity.
Change the original layout of your manuscript so that it looks different than when you first typed it out. Printing out your manuscript is best, but if you don’t want to use up that much paper, you can also temporarily change the line spacing, the font color, etc.. This will again help you to see your manuscript differently.
Keep your print or online version of a dictionary and thesaurus handy. Besides checking to make sure you are using a word in the right way, it is also good to find new synonyms and antonyms to add variety to your manuscript.
Read your manuscript out loud, or have it read at loud to you. Most computers have a text-to-speech app, and when you hear your words read to you, you get a different perspective.
Use the find-and-replace function in your writing app to ensure that every misspelling or grammar error you find is changed throughout your manuscript. You can also use that function to replace any “two spaces after a period” to one space.
Create a customized proofreading checklist. Make a list of your most common mistakes and then use it to check your manuscript for those errors.
Try to work on your proofreading project early in the morning or when your brain and your eyes are the freshest.
Complete a separate, second pass of proofreading of your manuscript. The “cleaner” the manuscript that you submit to your editor, the smoother the editing process will be.
Make a list of questions and concerns for your editor. The editor-writer relationship is best when it is considered a team effort, and it will really help your editor when you have proofread your manuscript twice and understand exactly what changes/corrections you would prefer and like to see.
As a book editor, one of the questions I am frequently asked is: What is the turnaround time for editing, in other words: “When can I get my edited manuscript back so we can move to the next step?” The time it will take for your manuscript to be professionally edited will be considerably shortened when you take the time to complete two passes of your own self-proofreading. As the writer, you will also be more sure of the quality of your manuscript. Remember it is your book and you want it to be the best it can be.
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