I can’t take credit for the phrase “Proofreaders Are Born, Not Made.” I don’t know who came up with it, but I saw it first on the excellent website, ProofreadNOW.com.
But I believe it’s true. I know a lot of people who are just natural proofreaders. And that’s true whether they work as professional proofreaders or not.
If you are a born proofreader, errors simply leap off the page (or screen) at you. You can’t NOT notice them. It would be like failing to notice a 20-piece band in clown suits climbing onto your subway car. And if you’re like most born proofreaders, you feel written language should be held to high standards. You get irritated when you read a so-called professional publication that’s full of grammatical errors. You think to yourself, “Don’t these people have any copy editors or proofreaders on staff? Don’t they value the quality of what they publish?”
If you are one of these people, you are sitting there nodding your head and going, “Yep.” If not, then you’re, well… not.
Can You Learn to Be a Great Proofreader?
Can someone be trained to be a proofreader? I’m not sure. We all learn the rules of grammar sometime in elementary school or middle school. But then, two paths diverge in a wood. Some people simply internalize those rules so that they become as natural as eating or walking. Others quickly forget what a participle is or why a misplaced modifier is a bad thing, and diagramming a sentence? Fuhgeddaboutit.
I think a person’s natural proofreading talents can certainly be honed, refined, and perfected. I am a proofreader by nature, but I often need refreshers on the particulars of the Chicago Manual vs. the AP Style Guide (which one uses the em dash with no surrounding spaces, again?! I’d have to look it up, though I think it’s Chicago). And I can never remember what a gerund is to save my life.
But you can’t go to school and major in Proofreading (can you?). I’ve never even seen a college course with that title, though I bet one exists somewhere. Some colleges offer editing certificate programs, and presumably proofreading is covered at some point.
Editing vs. Proofreading
Editing is a different story. There are many different types of editing, which I will talk about in another blog post. Editing is more sophisticated and conceptual, while proofreading is more technical. I believe you get better at editing the more you practice it. But your proofreading skills, being innate, are more static.
What do you think? Can a person learn to be an excellent proofreader? Or is proofreading a world of "haves" and "have nots"?
I don't know whether all good proofreaders have an innate talent, but it does seem to be a common factor. I certainly spend a lot of time grinding my teeth when reading error-filled texts, whether or not I want to care.
ReplyDeleteI've been known to take my pencil (or pen, if that's what's handy) to periodicals from time to time. This is particularly sad, as mostly what I read is The New York Times. When the Times isn't hiring adequate copy editors, you know something's wrong.
ReplyDeleteBlog posts... I've learned to tolerate 'em.
I have to say, though, that I believe it is possible to get through a K-12 education these days without ever learning the "rules" of grammar or any guidelines for style. College professors seem to have been lamenting this since at least the 1990's. I know none of my siblings learned how to diagram a sentence when they were at school.
I do like both proofreading and editing, though. It made working as a tutor in the language lab at grad school very satisfying. I liked being able to prevent poor communication, especially when something was being prepared for publication.