Editing and Proofreading

Professional techniques for polishing any piece of writing.

5 Reasons why you Should use a Document Editor Today

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When you are writing or publishing an important document, you should never underestimate the importance of having your written English checked by a professional proofreading agency. Here are five reasons why you should use a document editor from Vappingo to perfect your written English documents:


English expert document editors1)  Our Professional document editors are English experts. Our editors know the English language inside out and will analyze your written English using over 160 English grammar rules. However, unlike automatic grammar checking software and websites, our document editors won’t simply point out the mistake and make suggestions for how you can fix it, they will actually fix it for you, saving you the major headache and confusion of deciphering complex English rules.

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A Great Proofreading Trick For Mac Owners

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Mac LogoWe’re always telling our customers that one great proofreading trick is to read your paper or essay aloud in order to audibly hear mistakes. Well, if you’re a Mac owner, you may be able to go one better and have your Mac do the reading for you!

Hearing the words without having to read them yourself will undoubtedly assist you to identify punctuation and grammar issues and, best of all, the function is really easy to use and set up.

Select the Apple menu > System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech. Place a check next to the check box “Speak selected text when the key is pressed”. Click on the “Set Key” button and choose a combination of keys that you will use to activate the speech recognition activity. Choose your preferred voice from the options offered at the top of the window and select the speaking rate from the speeds available. Close the window and you’re done.

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Proofreader, Proof-reader or Proof reader?

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Proofreader, proof-reader or proof reader… hmm. Perform a simple search on the Internet and you’ll quickly become confused about which version is actually correct. In practice, all three versions of this job title are perfectly acceptable, including the lesser-spotted hyphenated version. We favor the term proofreader and that’s why you will see that this is … Read more

7 Common English Errors Every Proofreader Should Look For

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Grammar lady says "apostrophes are for possessives, not pluralsThere are a number of common English errors that our proofreaders come across time and time again and, given that Vappingo’s mission is to make written communications the norm, we feel that it is our duty to help our customers with their written English. Hopefully, this post will help a few of you to learn from your mistakes and develop your own proofreading skills. If nothing else, they most certainly highlight the importance of proofreading and editing before it is published.

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Proofreading Joke: An Important Distinction

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Thanks to James Garlick who sent in a really good joke about the importance of proofreading that he found on the Internet. We love it!

If only this guy had come across our editing and proofreading services.

In an ancient monastery, a new monk arrived to dedicate his life to subservient solitude and to join the others as they copied ancient records. The first thing he noticed was that the other monks were copying, by hand, books that had already been copied by hand.

The new monk had to speak up: “Forgive me, Brother Mark, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren’t copying someone else’s mistakes? Are they ever checked against the originals? Who is proofreading them?”

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Proofreading Symbols Every Proofreader Should Know

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A set of proofreading symbols

Proofreading symbols are like a foreign language to most people; they are often considered to be an indecipherable series of squiggles, letters, and symbols that mean absolutely nothing to the regular guy or girl on the street. Unless you know what these proofreading marks actually mean, using them to improve and develop your writing is … Read more

Spellchecker Poem: Proofreading Software FAIL

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Once again we have come across a great example of why proofreading software cannot be relied upon as a substitute for using professional proofreaders.  This time, it is in the form of the Spellchecker Poem.  Run this little verse through your spell checker and you will find that it doesn’t contain one single mistake, or does it?

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

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Idiom: The Black Sheep of the Family

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black sheep of the family

Fig. A worthless or disreputable family member.

The “black sheep” is a member of a social group or family who is regarded as a disgrace and an embarrassment to the rest of the group. The phrase became popular during the 18th century and is associated with the proverb, “There’s a black sheep in every flock.”

It is believed that the phrase derived from the fact that the fleeces of black sheep were not as valuable as those of the white sheep.  While the wool of a white sheep could be dyed many different colors, the black fleece was a lot more limited and, for this reason, people preferred to have only white sheep in their flocks.

Examples:

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The Most Painfully Idiotic Contradictions You Have Ever Seen

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Top sign reads 'Do not enter". Sign directly below reads "enter only"

One of the biggest thing our proofreaders keep a beady eye out for when proofreading important documents is contradictions. It’s important that your text does not contain any events characters, plot lines and settings that contradict each other and leave your readers scratching their heads. Here are some great examples of contradictions in action.

Sign reads: "Do not enter. Entrance only."

No pets allowed. All pets must be on a leash.

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Proofreading Marks for All Needs

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If life hands you melons, hire a proofreader

Proofreading marks are used by proofreaders and editors to indicate an error in the copy.  The nature of the mark is directly related to the type of error that has been produced, and proofreaders and editors will place the proofreading mark in the line of text where the error takes place.

Depending on the nature of the editing services, the proofreader will then either write a correction in the margin or will write a correction directly above the sentence.

You can read more about what proofreaders do in our guide to the differences between editing and proofreading.

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How a Trip to Starbucks Can Make you an Expert Proofreader

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Many people rely on a strong cup of coffee to get them through the morning, but new research suggests that a daily fix of caffeine can actually help to improve your proofreading skills. According to Tad Brunye, a senior cognitive scientist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts, caffeine … Read more