Never underestimate the power of the written word — or what you should do to protect it.
There are many misconceptions about the relative merits of hiring a professional to do your copyediting or proofreading. Don’t let these bad ideas stand in the way of good business practice.
If we never made silly mistakes, we would never spend 20 minutes looking for keys that we left in yesterday’s pants, the front door lock, or the pocket of the jacket one is already wearing (all real examples of morning drama in my household).
Human beings make mistakes from absentmindedness at least as often as from ignorance. Of course you know to use “through” instead of “threw” and to have subject–verb agreement, just as you know to check your own pocket for keys. But sometimes you need someone else to point out the obvious.
You don’t go to the barber with the best haircut in town, do you? No, you go to whoever cuts his hair. You can’t give yourself a great haircut, and you can’t take a clean view of your own work.
There are techniques you can learn to improve the chances of effectively proofing or editing your own work, but nothing beats a fresh perspective. I once worked in an office for weeks before working up the nerve to point out a typo in a poster hanging on the wall. It was a cover from an issue of the organization’s magazine, enlarged to many times its original size. There in two-inch-high letters was a misspelling that nobody on the staff had noticed in the several months since the magazine had been published. It was a common word, so it’s not that they didn’t know how to spell it. They were simply too close to it to see the error.
If they are trained editors with dedicated time for the task, then, yes. But if you have untrained people squeezing in more work between unrelated projects, no matter how educated or well-intentioned they are they will only marginally improve your document. Why?
How much time and money do you have to reprint a brochure? To issue a correction? A clarification? An apology? How much will you lose through a diminished reputation or lost sales?
A professional proofread or edit is not an expensive step and pays for itself many times over by preventing other, more expensive, fixes. It also does not take long if properly planned, such as by securing vendors before the project starts to ensure their availability. After establishing the relationship, most proofreaders and editors would be happy to take subsequent work on shorter notice.
An editorial professional only changes documents for the better — assuming both parties agree on what constitutes “better.”
It is critical to clarify the desired outcomes before the work commences (see “Hiring a Vendor”). If you want the proofreader to correct only spelling errors or you want the editor to maintain passive voice throughout, specify that at the outset. Your vendor will be able to walk you through the possibilities and may even provide a checklist.
A useful tool is the Track Changes feature in MS Word (and equivalents in other programs) that enables you to accept or reject each change suggested by your contractor. This way you can quickly review their work and can easily give objective feedback on their performance.
When the stakes are high, it only makes sense to protect the integrity of your written image. A professional polish is the best way to ensure that your words speak well of you.