Proofreading

Commercial printers used to employ professional proofreaders. They generally don't anymore. A good proofreader is a solitary being with pedantic qualities. A good proofreader will put themselves in the position of your reader. They won't simply check the spelling and layout of your copy. They will have a fanatical devotion to consistency, to checking facts and to asking the simple question 'does this make any sense?'.

I once published the fact that the institution I work for had a Professor of Pubic Administration. This taught me three valuable lessons:

Good proofreaders will spot things that the untrained eye won't. They know the difference between hyphens, en and em rules and when to use them. Proofreading should be done in an environment free of distractions. All you need to have to hand is a supply of coffee and a small library of reference works. I use the Oxford set - Concise English Dictionary, Dictionary for Writers and Editors and Thesaurus. I also have Hart's Rules (for compositors), the Chicago Style Guide and Sir Ernest Gower's Plain English kicking about somewhere.

So if you need your Meisterwerk proofread properly, I'm your man, contact me.