5 Tips to Catch More Mistakes in Your Content

Hiring a professional proofreader to review your content is the only way to ensure that it is 100 percent error free.

But I get it—sometimes that is just not practical.

Perhaps you need to turn in a report or publish a blog post today, and there is no time to send it off to someone to review. Or perhaps your project doesn’t have the funds to hire a proofreader online.

These practices are used by professional editors, and you can easily adopt them to help you better review your own written content.

If this is the situation you find yourself in, don’t fret. You can still take action to reduce the number of errors in your document.

To help you, this post will provide you with five tips you can use when proofreading your own work. These are practices used by professional editors (like yours truly), and you can easily adopt them to help you better review your own written content.

Quickly Locate Extra Spaces

One of the hardest mistakes to spot when reviewing a document is extra spaces that shouldn’t be there.

This can be especially true if the text is justified.

It’s fairly common, for example, to inadvertently hit the space bar a second time with your thumb in between typing two words or be slightly off with a copy-and-paste maneuver.

Use Ctrl+F (PC) or Cmd+F (Mac) to find and highlight any extra spaces quickly.

While spelling and grammar checkers (see below) sometimes catch an extra space between words, they often don’t.

Thankfully, there is an easy way to locate them with just a few keystrokes.

Simply open the finder window on your word-processing program of choice using Ctrl+F on a PC or Cmd+F on a Mac and hit the space bar two times. The software will immediately highlight any instances of an extra space in your text, allowing you to quickly scan the document and remove them.

Find and Fix the Same Mistake Throughout the Document—the Easy Way

While the finder window is very helpful for finding extra spaces between words, it has yet another trick up its sleeve.

Let’s say, for example, that you have a document with the word “e-commerce” strewn throughout the text. Your manager, however, has asked that you utilize a different spelling to match the company’s style guide—in this case, “eCommerce.”

Use the “Find and Replace” option to make the same correction throughout your text automatically.

You could read through the document and manually locate and change every instance of the hyphenated version of the word, but there is an easier, more reliable way.

When you open the finder window, there will be a button or carat that you can click to bring up additional options. The new window that appears contains a find and replace option.

At this point, all you need to do is type in the misspelled word in the top field and the corrected version in the bottom field. Select the option to replace all and voila!—your entire text has been updated with the corrected word.

Use Spelling and Grammar Checkers

Word-processing programs come with built-in spelling and grammar checkers, and it’s always a good idea to make use of them.

They are far from perfect and no match for a professional proofreader, but they will find the most egregious mistakes and can act as a second set of eyes.

Grammarly is another good option when it comes to software spellcheckers. It often finds errors that the native tools miss, and vice versa.

It’s always a good idea to use tools like Grammarly, but be aware that they are not always correct.

However, like built-in tools, it is not always correct either.

Any spelling or grammar tool should be used with a bit of skepticism. They can alert you to valid mistakes, but they are just as likely to report false positives. Be sure to do more research on anything these tools tell you that doesn’t seem right to you.

Use the Dictionary

The dictionary is a proofreader’s best friend. When you need to review your own work, you can make use of it too.

You can pick up a copy of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for a very reasonable price on Amazon, or you can use a free site like dictionary.com.

Even if it’s been years since you last opened a dictionary, they are still one of the most important tools available when you need to review any content—including your own.

Whichever option you choose, dictionaries are invaluable for verifying the spelling of tricky or uncommon words. They are also extremely helpful for knowing when to hyphenate a word or ensuring a word is being used correctly in a document.

Even if it’s been years since you last opened a dictionary, they are still one of the most important tools available when you need to review any content—including your own.

Keep a List of Nonstandard Terms

If you are writing for business, it’s likely that your company or department has specific words or phrases that it uses in certain ways.

Keep a file on your computer (or create a Google Doc) that lists out all nonstandard words and phrases your company uses.

If you’re lucky, there is a style guide that defines these for you, but that is often not the case.

Rather than just trying to remember them, keep a file on your computer (or create a Google Doc) that lists out all of these nonstandard words and phrases.

Make note of the following:

• Words that are capitalized that normally wouldn’t be
• Technical or industry-specific jargon (if writing for a general audience, it’s best to avoid these altogether)
• Any acronyms and what they stand for (again, limit usage where possible)
• Anything else that is specific to your company

Use this list as a quick reference to help ensure your document is using your business’s terminology in the right way—without having to call the marketing department.