"But I did proofread!" Last week, my students handed in their first, diagnostic essays (Well, some of them. Apparently, I need to beat the concept of deadlines into their thick skulls). Since they're 17/18, and they're still technically in high school (though I teach a college course), and it's the first essay of the year, I actually wasn't expecting much.

And woo boy, that's what I got!

Out of like 17 papers, only 2 were anywhere near acceptable. When we were going through the postmortem, after I passed the papers back, I asked how many of them proofread their papers before they handed them into me, their new teacher who they supposedly want to impress because I hold an awesome amount of power over their immediate future.

90% of the class raised their hands. The rest looked chagrined.

Now, at this point, there are really only two options. They're lying to me. Or they really thought they proofread their papers. Being a charitable, kind soul, I'm more inclined to believe the latter. Also? I make the world's stupidest mistakes all the time. I honestly would not be surprised if you have picked out one or two already, and you better believe I proofread this before posting.

The simple fact of the matter is we're too close to our work. Your brain will fill in the blank spots. Often, Vivien will point out utterly ridiculous, entirely avoidable errors to me and I will be shocked because I honestly didn't see it. Then there are other problems. Many people don't know the difference between words like "affect" and "effect" or "advise" and "advice" or "then" and "than" and what's worse is, they don't know they don't know the difference--I picked those examples because they are my favorite mistakes to make. For years, I couldn't hear the difference between "then" and "than" because in Utah, the words sound exactly alike. Since moving back to Utah, I've had trouble picking out the difference between other words that never used to give me grief before.

I also have a problem with rambling. Have you noticed?

My point is, ultimately, you will be held responsible for every single word you write. It doesn't matter who "beta reads" it, and it doesn't matter who the editor is, or the proof-reader, or the final line editor. In the end, your name is affixed to the cover, and you will garner all the blame for any and all mistakes. So here are some strategies I've used in the past to avoid looking like an idiot (and the same strategies I teach my students):

1) Do NOT rely on Word to catch all the errors. That should go without saying, but somehow, it never does.

2) Read it out loud. Preferably to a sympathetic ear. Sentences that look perfectly find to you on the page might sound completely wrong. Also, if you read it out loud, you're forced to evaluate the words in new ways. In other words, you won't see what you're expecting to see.

3) Read it backwards. Start at the bottom with the very last sentence and read the sentence backwards. Go through the whole document like that.

4) Print it out (Yeah, I know). But it's different with a pen and paper than it is on your screen.

5) Walk away from it. You need space. It needs to breathe.

6) If you can get away with it, find somebody who is anal retentive and loves you enough to read it. I do ask Vivien to go over my edits--even the stuff that I write on my own and she has nothing to do with.

These are just the options I can think of off the top of my head. I'd love to see what other people do to make their work sparkle and shine!

--Pepper E  ¶ posted at 4:00 AM by Pepper Espinoza