Proofreading. Some writers love it, some writers despise it. But whatever your feelings, proofreading is your final task when preparing to share your words with the world.

Writers often read their words the way they believe they wrote them, not how they actually wrote them. This means spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors, such as poor sentence structure, wrong choice of words and punctuation can all go unnoticed by the writer. These factors impact the context and readability of the work.

The good news is that proofreading skills can be learned, developed and improved. Where is the best source for information on learning how to proofread, I hear you ask (at least I hope you are).

Fear not my friends, help is at hand and The Haunted Pen is here to save the day!

The best source for hands-on information is a professional proofreader – someone who has spent years honing their skill set, developing tricks and techniques to perfect their proofreading repertoire.

Someone like me…

Once upon a time, in a publishing house far, far away (Rugby, England to be precise), I worked as a professional proofreader for more than six years. Believe me, you do not proofread hundreds, more like thousands, of scientific, technical and medical journal papers without picking up a nugget or two or 20.

Being the giving person that I am, I want to share my hard-earned knowledge with you. So, without further ado, here are 20 professional proofreading tips, procedures and techniques that you can put into practice right here, right now…