Your stomach drops. You feel the blood rush to your cheeks. You feel a deep, deep sense of regret. You now have 100,000 [insert printing or promotional items here] that display a glaring mistake – usually a spelling error or typo. If you’ve ever been the designated eagle eye on printed piece that went wrong, you know the feeling.
Proofing failures happen to the best of them. Check out this “unfortunate mistake” from Notre Dame earlier this year.
At FORMost, we do our best to help clients prevent errors and proof accurately, but the ultimate responsibility does lie with the client. We know that’s a lot of pressure, so here are seven tips to help make your proofreading more accurate.
7 Tips for Better Proofreading
- Eliminate distractions so that you can focus. Step away from your desk into a quiet conference room if necessary.
- Print it out. It will be easier to catch mistakes on paper than on your monitor.
- Make changes in red pen or marker.
- Use your resources. Don’t hesitate to refer to the dictionary, thesaurus, or the Internet to verify words or facts.
- Ask for a fresh set of eyes. Having someone else look it over will help you to pick up mistakes that you may be overlooking.
- Read it out loud. This makes it harder to skip over mistakes than when reading it.
- Come back to it. Stop, take a break, and proofread again later that day.
FORMost Graphic Communications
301-424-4242