Proofreading hints

You’ve read your writing a dozen times but still don’t notice your usual mistakes.

The trouble is our brains are lazy, pattern-finding machines, so we need to break up how we look at the page.

First, disrupt the typical way you edit. Print it out, read it backwards, read it out loud, or do a combination of a few of them.

Often, we also have repeated bad habits in our writing: crutch words, poor grammar, and spelling mistakes. Keep a running list of them and work through them one at a time so you catch them.

And finally, an outside opinion helps a lot. A friend, an editor, or even an AI proofreader can do wonders for finding your mistakes. Don’t be shy to use any of them.

We’re so grateful that we got the first draft down that we don’t have the energy to keep going. But using these three simple tips can improve your writing immensely.