Proof reading/Editing

[woodelf]

Any authors out there in AB land who would like their work proof read and/or edited? Absolutely no charge whatever, just send as a .doc and single line spaced and I'll return it as such...I've got loads of time on my hands is all! Ta Muchly.

[sir.prize]

Well - that was fun.

[woodelf]

It comes as no surprise, Sir.prize.

[woodelf]

There are ways and there are ways, but never mind, eh?...my offer still stands, with no ulterior motive.

[sherrardk]

Hi Woodelf, out if interest, how would you proof-read using a screen reader. How does it recognise punctuation marks, etc?

[woodelf]

Hi Sherr (if I may?), in your sentence my screen reader recognised the commas because of the longer space of silence between the words and the question mark because of the intonation. I could set the screen reader so that it reads every single character, but this is so boring and verbose, that I set it just to recognise capital letters and I use my ears to suss out the pauses and my editing capabilities (whatever they may be) to know what and where punctuation is or should be.

[sherrardk]

That's clever, I didn't realise that they did intonation. I can proof-read as I had to learn how to teach and mark typing as part of my degree.

[jno]

it's true that it's publishers rather than writers who usually need proof-readers. Nonetheless, I recently proof-read a book for a friend after it had been through the publisher's own reader, and there were still plenty of errors in it. This is no surprise to me; the standard of editing and proof-reading at publishers today is pretty awful. So your offer sounds like a useful one.

You could offer your services to publishers, who certainly need someone capable of doing it. I've heard of people finding part-time work this way, but I don't know how many of the publishers would be interested.

[woodelf]

Many Thanks for that jno, I never thought about that idea and as I agree with you that post-publishers' texts leave a lot to be desired, I'll certainly think about it.

[squarebear]

Thanks needs a lower case "t".

[woodelf]

Lol squarebear, but in my defence, I claim poetic licence to dispense praise with capikal letterz....smile...and the mistayks are intenshinul!...smile.