This Page is an Introduction
to the Correction of a Scientific or Academic Paper
There are Three Separate Stages of Correction in any given Document or Manuscript
1. Review
While reviewing, the evaluator only marks the errors or the mistakes.
The evaluator does not actually correct them.
It is a quality control measure in order to ascertain the quality of the work.
Often, if the manuscript's text is large, the review may only be conducted on a small sample
of the text, especially if the author/client is well know to the proofreading company.
In the case of PRS Proofreading Services, this work would be conducted by the
PRS Evaluation Team, in order to produce a Formal Quotation.
2. Copy Editing
Contrary to popular belief, a copy editor is not a glorified spell checker.
The copy editor is your necessary partner in a publication.
A copy editor checks for and corrects errors in grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
People often refer to all of the stages of revision as “editing”,
but "copy editing" is what is performed after the reviewing process is completed.
It is the next stage in the process of producing the finished finalised paper.
Careful copy editing takes time - and it is an in-depth process.
It is critical for a polished, well written paper.
It cannot be rushed and hurried, regardless of what some companies on the Internet claim.
PRS Proofreading Services employs 2 different copy editors at this stage.
The first copy editor takes care of "The 1st Draft", which the author/client usually receives.
The second copy editor takes care of "The 2nd Draft", which is not usually sent to
the author/client, unless it is deemed to be critically important.
This 2nd stage corrects any errors that may have been missed previously.
This '2nd copy editing' is very pertinent, since in a manuscript with many errors,
it is often very difficult to spot all of the mistakes.
This is because we are all humans - no matter how qualified we may be,
for it is sometimes, very confusing on the eye and on the brain
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A COPY EDITING / PROOFREADING PUZZLE TO SHOW YOU
Question: How many Fs are there in the following sentence?
(Important, count them ONLY ONCE: do not go back and count them again)
“Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.”
You probably answered three, yes?
This is the answer that most people give.
Or more accurately, this is the answer that most native speakers give.
ANSWER
There are actually six instances of the letter ‘f’ in that sentence – go back and check.
If you still only see three, then check out the three times the word ‘of’ appears,
they also have the letter ‘f’.
This will help you.............
“Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.”
SIX!
This has great implications for copy editing and proofreading.
When a proofreader proofreads text, they admit to having a blind spot.
They know what the text is supposed to say, but their brain does a great job of auto-correcting.
They see what is supposed to be there, instead of what is really there.
What this means is that if you give this test to someone who does not speak English,
they will most likely get the correct answer of six, because for them,
it really is a pattern-matching exercise.
The astonishing conclusion is that the better you are at English,
the more likely you are to get the wrong answer. Astounding!
Why? What is the reason for this mistake?
There are two factors that will influence your answer.
The letter ‘f’ usually has a hard sound, like ‘found’ or 'from', but not a soft sound,
like the word ‘of’ - where the 'f' sounds more like a ‘v’).
The first two words in the sentence (finished files), reinforce this incorrect subconscious thinking,
because they both have a 'hard sound'.
When we read the test sentence above,
because the word ‘of’ doesn’t sound like it has an ‘f’ in it, we don’t count it!
The other point is that when we process and read the English language,
we do not give the same importance to every word. We tend to skip the little words,
such as ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘of’, ‘at’, and so forth, while giving most of our attention to the nouns and verbs.
In other words, when we read the test sentence above, we do not really read the three
instances of the word ‘of’ – we just blur past them.
You probably do the same when reading your own language.
These two points account for why 'native speakers' tend to see three, instead of six.
Dumbfounding and Exasperating!
3. Proofreading
Proofreading comes next and this is the last stage.
It consists of a final sweep through the paper, with an eye looking out for any more errors.
Proofreaders do not suggest major changes to the text, rather,
they look for minor text and formatting errors.
Proofreading is the process of examining the final draft of a document or text,
after it has been copy edited and amended.
This is in order to ensure that there are absolutely no errors.
A proofreader will review for spelling errors, punctuation errors, typos,
or for the incorrect use of English
(in other words, ensuring that the paper is written in American English or British English).
The proofreader will then confirm that the material is ready for publication.
Copy editing and proofreading are two separate tasks, although the terms are sometimes
used interchangeably by people who do not know the difference.
On highly technical and scientific papers,
PRS will again employ 2 proofreaders at this end stage,
in order to be completely satisfied that all of the revisions are perfectly correct.
