What is a proofreader and what is needed to become one?

Document editing proofreading jobs requires that you be good in grammer and detail orientated, many authors need proof readers with experience to read over and check for any grammatical errors or mispellings.

As you are well aware it is easy to miss mistakes when one has spent a great amount of time on a project such as a manuscript, novel or ad copy. To understand best what a potential client is looking for one needs to get the full grasp of what is involved with a proof reading job.

Lets start by me sharing with you from experience some of the issues that come up when starting a contract proofreading assignment. One of the main industries that uses a large number of proofreaders is publishers of novels and books. A typeset copy is reviewed and compared against an original manuscript. Training the eye to see errors is not easy because we subconsciously will make corrections as we read simply due to us knowing what it should say not what it is saying.

Learning to see a written text in its form and making note of any typographical errors, recognizing the correct word placement in a sentence takes skill. A trained eye will notice things others miss. It is important to not get caught up in comprehension or understanding.

When we read something we can pretty much get an idea of what the author is trying to get across to us, even if the words or grammer is not correct. As you are well aware academic proofreading is not the same as reading. Now you are in a different place, you are analyzing the words to see if it is in the correct english verbage, such as noun, adverb, sentence structure, punctuation etc.

Experience, training, skill and practice will make it possible for you to become a better proofreader.

Ways to train your eyes to notice errors while reviewing a typeset or text

One thing that one needs to learn when starting a proofreading job is that it is important to not only be able to recognize grammatical and typographical errors it is necessary to be able to make the necessary corrections, marking the page as you go along is called "proof correction marks". What this means is the style, best usage, grammer, punctuation or spelling that is inline with the overall report, page, text or script that you are proofreading.

Basically if you are proofreading a advertisment copy, the manner in which it will be formatted will be different than if you were proofreading an instructional manual. Each one will have its own formal style that will be appropriate for its audience of readers.

Some tips to help with improving on your quality of work as a proofreader is to recognize that many large publishers have teams of people who all review and look over a particular piece before it is printed, errors can happen, especially when being typed quickly through a wordprocessor or database. So no matter if you are looking at the hardcopy or a computerized version.

First thing you will want to do is go through the material at a slow pace, disect each section and look for the format of the text not the meaning of it.

Then you will probably notice that it is recommended you read the text aloud so as to incorporate all your senses of sight, verbal and hearing of the words. Knowledge of the english language is crucial, some words are spelled the same but have different meanings so the correct context needs to be already understood before one can work as a proofreader.

Grammer and Proofreading Resources to help you get started in a proofreading job

• Common writing mistakes to look for is misspelled words, for a guide to grammar and writing you will want to check out this link, this site covers areas such as:
• Sentence Parts
• Word Functions
• Verbs
• Verbals
• Clauses
• Phrases
• Diagramming Sentences
• Sentence Fragments
• Run-on Sentences
• Rules for Comma
• Usage Punctuation
• Marks Besides the Comma
• Punctuation Between Two Independent Clauses
• Notorious Confusables
• Plurals
• Possessives
• Pronouns
• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
• Placement of Modifiers
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Tense Sequence among Verbs,
• Infinitives, and Participles
• Compound Nouns and Modifiers
• Capitalization and much more, a handy tool for anyone who is looking to start a career as a proofreader.  

Where to find proofreading jobs on the internet

Proofreaders can earn up to $45 dollars an hour, experience training and skill is needed to get quality proofreading jobs. Listings of employers hiring can be found when you put the phrase "proofreading jobs" in quotation marks in Google or any of the various search engines, as you see above in the screen print Touchpoints Marketing and Advertising is looking for an senior copywriter and proofreader who has experience in making revisions.

Salary.com has a listing of search sites for proofreader jobs some of these include Media Job Market, The Wall Street Journal and Careerbuilder.

Going through job descriptions for the freelance positions you may be looking for will give you a better idea of what potential employers will expect from you before they hire. For example you will notice on the page an announcement requirements are 5 years experience and technical editor knowledge. More opportunities become available if you consider looking in different geographical areas when seeking freelance employment.

Which the next tutorial will show.

How to use search strategies to find freelance proofreader jobs the easy way

Learning how to search for a writing job is just as important as knowing what type of work you want to Find-Freelance-Writing-Jobs.

Here are some of the places you can start your search:

AltaVista, Google, All the Web/FAST, HotBot, Excite, Meta-Search Engines, all the web/fast supports implied Boolean logic +/-) and phrase searching on the Basic Search page.

Now for this exercise and to make things simplier, searches will be done using Google. Now lets say you want to find freelance jobs in New York, and you want to telecommute.as a proofreader excluding all other areas.

We will start by using the add symbols to help in finding exactly what we are looking for.

• Use the "-" symbol when you want a search engine to find pages that have a specific term but you want the search engine to exclude other common words associated with that term such as proofreading jobs in new york minus copy editing, since copy editing is often associated with proofreading jobs.
• If you have a terms that you want returned in all your search results, you can place the plus "+" symbol in front of the terms that you need included such as, proofreading jobs + new york

Lets first type in "proofreading jobs" + "new york", see how the search results only show websites for this specific query? The first site listed on Google is called learnproofreading.com it says it is New York's #1 Training and Placement Assistance in Legal and Financial Proofreading, so right away we have narrowed our list down to 1 in 5,000 searches. Next we see jobscareers24.com that lists proofreading jobs in New York along with the job site called Jobster.

Lets get even more specific what about proofreading jobs in New York for telecommute. See screen shot below:

Ways to find telecommute proofreading jobs for your specific area

Here the example above shows that your results has decreased to 1 in 329 search results, this gets us only jobs that have telecommute in the title. The list on the first page shows SimplyHired.com, thewritersjob.com and

JuJu.com lists Freelance Copywriter, wanted at TimeWarner Division HBO Industry Cable/Broadcast Television Networks Film Production. Other job listings include Heritage Web Solutions needs Freelance Staff Writers Telecommute - Work from Home anywhere in the Nation! Earn $25-$50/hour...Web Search strategies can save you time and help you sort through all the duplicate information found on the web through the search engines.

Other tips is to use the word is and are...for example "freelance writing jobs are" or "freelance writing jobs is", will help you get more researched information and filter out most of the advertisements. Gaining the career you seek is possible with the right tools.

There are several niches to choose from for example: There are opportunities for finding a freelance job, as well as trying out for a Freelance-Copy-Editing-job. Another job similar to the previous one mentioned is freelance-copywriting-job. Now if you like to read books like I do you may prefer a Freelance-Book-Review-Job, Now if you like to tell stories a good fit would include finding a Freelance-Book-Writing-Job.

A interesting way to write books for others that does not require you trying to get published is to become a Freelance-Ghostwriter. Not every writer is into novels so if you prefer covering the news, current events you can become a Freelance-Journalist. One of the more glamorous writing jobs or maybe just more popular fields is Freelance-Magazine-Writing-Jobs.

One of my favorites is where one can use their vacations as a way to make extra money selling articles as a Freelance-Travel-Writer. More has been written about blogging so you have the option of getting a Freelance-Blogging-job. The internet continues to get more and more users getting online causing a need for more Freelance-Website-Writers. And what is published on these websites are lots and lots of content, so as you look for freelance writing jobs you will see listings for Freelance-Article-Writing-Jobs.

Other interesting fields for freelance writers include: Content-Writing-Jobs, Technical-Writing-Jobs, Research-Writing-Jobs, Screenwriting-Jobs, Entertainment-Writing-Jobs, these are just a few of the many types of jobs for writers. Its nice to know as you are aware that you have a variety to choose from.