The importance of print[print?:printing image graphic cutting solution] proofing is immense. The credibility of any publication depends upon it. Unsurprisingly then, it is a task that must be undertaken with the utmost attention, and certain people are particularly suited to the task. Proofreaders have a certain attributes that combine to allow them to see mistakes in work that others cannot. They must understand the subject matter being proofed. All of these skills must be present for a proofreader to avoid costly errors before going to press. It is a sensible to have more than one proofreader look over anything that is about to be signed off as print ready. Two or three pairs of eyes is always better than one. Remember, spotting a blooper after it is printed is too late!
Checking proofs for errors
Understanding how the human brain reads allows us to better understand why we tend to overlook errors on a page. When reading, the human eye will skim over a word and recognize its meaning by the letters it contains as well as the context that it is written in. In other words we don’t actually read every letter of a word rather we look at the first and last letters, glance at the other letters and guess at the word based on the context we find it in
.e. 'Poelpe wlil uusllay udnesrtnad waht I am syanig hree bceasue tehy hvae graet sfotwrae in tehir haeds.'
While my word processor is screaming error! Most people will be able to understand the content of the sentence simply because the first and last letters are correct. The rest of the letters we need for each word are also there, and, as humans, we are great at guessing.
While this may seem like a rather slap dash way of reading our brains generally get it right. The advantage to this method (and the reason we do it intuitively) is that it allows us to read far more quickly than would otherwise be possible. The problem with this method of reading is that it all too easy to allow errors to slip through. A good proofreader has to look at every word in isolation and say 'is this the word the writer intended?'
Spell checkers
While most desk top publishing programs have pretty good spell checkers for the most part these useful utilities will not pick up mistakes that involve one word being incorrectly substituted for another i.e. 'I wasn't sure weather she liked me or not' should have read 'I wasn't sure whether she liked me or not'. Neither of these sentences look odd to my version of word but a human will know that the first is incorrect and the second is what I intended to say. So you cannot rely on your software to do the proofing for you.
Tips for proofreading:
Common slip ups
Be particularly vigilant for mistakes that you know you make on a regular basis, for me this would include: ‘thier’ instead of ‘their’, 'likley' instead of 'likely' and 'knowlege' instead of 'knowledge'. While the previous errors will generally show up when running a spell check the more cunning errors are the ones which are invisible to your dictionary.
Proper words used in the wrong context.
Some of my personal favorites being: 'discreet' and 'discrete', therefor instead of therefore, or knowing when to use 'they're' instead of 'there' (they're is a contraction of they are).
Tense errors
like: 'did' instead of 'done' or 'shrunk' instead of 'shrank' can be all too easy to make.
Typing the wrong word
Lastly the spelling errors where we generally know what they mean, but type something else. Again these will pass the spell checker test but make the sentence mean something completely different. i.e. 'though' instead of 'thought' or even 'through'.
Specialist knowledge
On top of all the spelling and grammar issues proof readers really need to understand what they are reading, in many cases this requires specialist knowledge. While your grasp of spoken and written English may be excellent you will likely still struggle to make sense of medical speak like: 'Diversion of portal fluid through systemic, portosystemic collateral vessels can cause hepatic encephalopathy to develop without cirrhosis or portocaval shunt surgery. This categorizines hepatic encephalopathy.' For this kind of proofing you need to agree that the statement you have read is correct. This can require some very specialized knowledge. Indeed to avoid errors in medical/technical publications will often require experts in the topic working closely with professional proofreaders and copywriters.
Screen Proofing
Since they arrived PDF's (which stands for Portable Document Format) have been a godsend to the industry, speeding up workflow and allowing designers easily communicate their ideas and consequently clients to ratchet up their expectations. PDFs allow designers to quickly and easily create a screen proof of the design they are working on and send it to you via email.
On screen edits
The beauty of these proofs is that the are encapsulated files which means that you do not require to have the exotic font that they have used on your computer in order to see what it will look like. In other words you should see the design exactly as it was intended by the designer without having to have a hard copy proof sent to you via snail mail. Furthermore you can make edits and annotations to this proof on screen, save them, and send them it back for inclusion. All done without a single sheet of paper[paper?:paper sample maker cutting machine] ever being used!
This aids workflow tremendously and should allow you to feel included in the whole designprocess. It should not however be looked upon as an alternative to hard copy printed proofs.
Hard copy proofing
Despite the obvious advantages of screen proofing hard copy proofs are the only way you are ever going to be sure of what your design will look like on paper. Elements such as colour and scale can be deceiving when looked at on screen. Before committing to press you must repeat must get a colour calibrated proof of your finished work. There are a variety of options here.
