Where's Your Proof?

As inevitably error-laden as a phone’s autocorrect feature, self-editing rarely leads to a perfect document. Rather, it leads to the illusion of perfection as the writer leans back in her chair, a smug smile on her face knowing her labor of love is now error free.

Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.

It’s so easy to read over our own mistakes because they are ours. We own them. We made them. We craft them to blend into the sentence as part of a seamless whole.

And blend it does.

Like a soldier in a ghillie suit, most self-made errors go unnoticed, unseen until it’s too late. Thus, the use of an outside pair of eyes is invaluable. Don’t skimp on a proofreader! Find a friend, a family member, a coworker, anyone who can reliably construct a grammatically sound sentence and let that someone read over your work.

However,…

If you must proof your own work, you may want to try reading your work aloud or backwards. I personally prefer reading aloud with the paper upside down (really hard on a laptop!).

Remember, to err is human. And to err and not even notice that you erred, well… that’s human too!