I get this question a lot from clients and business owners and even from friends who write marketing content in their professions. “Why do I need a proofreader?” It’s always purely rhetorical. And, it always makes me laugh and roll my eyes (even if I’m standing in front of them). The fact is, we all need a second set of eyes to check our writing whether we think we do or not.
So, stop rolling your eyes and read on—I promise you’ll learn a thing or two.
Once upon a time, I was that business owner who thought I didn’t need anyone to proof my work. I’m an English major, after all. I took countless writing classes in college. Aced more essays and creative writing pieces than I care to remember. So—and this question is still valid even though I’ve been a freelance writer now for over a decade—why do I need a proofreader when I have the education and experience that I have?
Well, let me tell you why I need a proofreader even though I am a proofreader…
Before I became a full-time freelance writer, I owned a home and garden retail shop. I did my own marketing, wrote my own newsletters and ads, and Angela designed most of the marketing material.
My newsletter content was solid—informative, but casual and fun. I took my own pictures, wrote the content, and carefully proofed each piece. (Because, why do I need a proofreader, right?) Angela laid it out in a spectacular design, and then I sent it to customers and others who had signed up for our mailing list.
Now, this was back in the days of snail mail, mind you. So, it was quite the process. (And, it wasn’t cheap.) I was proud of these newsletters—for someone who, at the time, didn’t have much experience with these things.
Those newsletters garnered the desired response, too. Scores of people came to shop our sales and buy our posh, “just arrived” home and garden décor. We had stellar attendance at our weekend gardening workshops and seasonal festivals. We got exactly the kinds of responses you want when you send out advertisements like that.
But, for all of the good responses—one somewhat negative bit of feedback stands out to this day (over 20 years later). Actually, there were several of those stand-out responses, but all were sent by the same woman. Let’s call her Nemesis, even though she meant well. (Actually, she was trying to get herself a job because she was a proofreader by profession. So, there’s that.)
I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.
For every five newsletters I would send out, Nemesis would return three of them. And those three contained her corrections (in red pen, like a bad grade from a teacher) of the errors I had made, with a deliberate, pointed little note asking if I needed a proofreader (meaning her). Now, in my defense, the redlines were few and far between. A period or a comma missing here, a typo there. The occasional missing word. Nothing major, and quite frankly, the average person probably wouldn’t have even noticed. So—How. Dare. She?
But, Nemesis was a professional. And therein lies my point.
I do need a proofreader to review my work. And, so do you.
No matter your profession, IF you want to appear professional, you should ensure your marketing content is perfect. The thing is, when you are writing a piece, you know what you are trying to say. So, when you read it, you may miss the fact that you forgot a word here and there. You know it’s supposed to be there, so your mind may skip right over the fact that words are missing or even misspelled. It happens all the time. Even with us professional proofreaders if we don’t follow certain protocol. (More on that in my next article.)
Here’s an easier example that you may relate to.
You know that “test” that’s been all over the internet for years? The short paragraph with words, except all of the vowels are missing or the letters in the words are out of order. But you can still read it even without the vowels and even if the letters are jumbled.
The fact that you can read it doesn’t mean you’re a genius, by the way.
Without getting into the neuroscience of it all, the simple reason we can read these things is because your brain processes whole words, and then anticipates the following words in each sentence based on context. So, it is easy to miss errors, especially when you wrote the content, because you know what it’s supposed to say.
So, do yourself a favor, especially if you’re writing professional content. Get. A. Proofreader. It’s worth the bucks you’ll pay—depending on how you want the world to view you, anyway. A professional proofreader greatly reduces the margin for error in your works. But if you can’t afford a pro, at least ask a friend to look at your work to ensure you haven’t missed anything. In fact, I’m about to ask Angela to proofread this article for me.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash