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Editing: What to look for in

“proofreading”?Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Presented at Lebanese International UniversityThursday December 17th 2015

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What do we do as editors?

Proofreading involves checking over the text in finer detail after the editing stage, to detect errors in:

SpellingSyntax (punctuation and parallelism)Grammar Function (Meaning and Culture)

What does proofreading involve?

Typos Homophones Silent Letters Capitalization

1. Spelling

Typos: This could happn to anyon at anytime as a result of quick typing/writing.

Usually, this issue is best solved with Auto and Machine spell-checkers.

OR

Via COMMON SENSE

1. Spelling

Question: Do Auto Spell-Checkers ALWAYS help?

1. Spelling

ANSWER:AbsolutelyDEFINITELYPOSTIVELY

NO1. Spelling

Review the following sentence:

The guests have just arrived. They’re sitting their.

1. Spelling

Comment:

In terms of spelling, the word “their” is correctly spelled. HOWEVER, the correct word is “There”; its homonym

1. Spelling

Top 10 Homonyms:1. Sea / See2. Sail / Sale3. Read / Reed 4. Dye / Die5. Dear / Deer6. Who’s / Whose7. It’s / Its8. You’re / Your9. To / Too / Two10. They’re / Their / There

1. Spelling

PLAY TIME: Choose the correct word: 1. Detox has many side (effects / affects)2. He saw the (bear/ bare) with his (bear / bare) eyes.3. The school’s (principal/ principle) stresses that all students abide to the school’s dress-code (principals/ principles).4. I (too/ two/ to) woke up at (too/two/to). I woke up late so I didn’t go (too/ two/ to) work. My brother woke up late (too/ two/ to), so we ended up at home; us (too/ two/ to).

Question: Do you spell in English the same way you do in Arabic?

1. Spelling

Answer: OHHHHH NO!

In Arabic: you write what you pronounce. This isn’t the case in English. Thus, many spelling mistakes arouse.

1. Spelling

In English, we have letters that combine together to produce one sound:

P + H = |F| e.g. phase / phaticThere are also sounds that we write, but we do not pronouncee.g. WeDnesday WHY NOT Wensday? SOLUTION: LIVE WITH IT

1. Spelling

The issue of Capitalization (not CAPITALISM my dear communists) is another issue an editor looks for in proofreading.

1. Spelling

When to capitalize:1. at the beginning of a sentence 2. Names of people (Adam not adam) 3. Titles that proceed a name (Dr. Ahmad

not dr. Ahmad)4. Names of places, rivers, lakes, countries,

capitals (cities), stores, mountains, universities, schools (Everest, China, LIU, Oxford, Faraya)

1. Spelling

When to capitalize:5. Titles of books, movies, “articles”, “magazines”, plays, songs, “poems”, or piece of art (The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, “The Sun”, The Scream)

6. Pronoun “I”

1. Spelling

Punctuation Parallel Structure (Parallelism)

2. Syntax

Punctuation errors can be FATAL. Punctuation errors change the meanings of

sentences. Punctuation errors lead to Run-Ons, and

Fragments.

2. Syntax

The SIMPLE Rule of Punctuation:1. Use a period at the end of a statement.

“The boy ate his apple.”2. Use a question mark at the end of an

interrogative. “Is this lecture boring you?”

3. Use an exclamation mark at the end of an exclamatory sentence “What a great house you have!”

2. Syntax

The SIMPLE Rule of Punctuation:4. In a quote, use a comma before the quotation mark, then put the quote in a quotation mark. DO NOT ADD A PERIOD AT THE END OF THE QUOTE BEFORE THE QUOTATION MARK.“to be or not to be”, Hamlet wondered.My mom asked, “Where are you going?”

2. Syntax

Punctuation errors change the whole meaning:

I ate my grandmother.I ate, my grandmother.

2. Syntax

Correct punctuation saves the paper from: Run-Ons, Fragments, and comma-splices.

2. Syntax

A Run-On is:

(sometimes called a "fused sentence") has at least two parts, either one of which can stand by itself (in other words, two independent clauses), but the two parts have been smooched together instead of being properly connected.

2. Syntax

Fixing a Run-On sentence:Mary likes dogs she has a beagle.Use either a COORDINATING CONJUNCTION,

SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION, or a period.

May likes dogs, so she has beagleBecause May likes dogs, she has a beagle.OR May has a beagle because likes dogs.May likes dogs. She also has beagle.

2. Syntax

A Fragment is: 1. An incomplete sentence that doesn’t have a verb. E.g.:Eating vegetables.

2. Or a dependant clause that has a verb and a subject, but no complete meaningBecause he hates school.

2. Syntax

A Fragment can be corrected by completing the dependant clause by adding an independent clause.

Also, a fragment can be corrected by adding a verb to a fragment which lacks a verb.

2. Syntax

A Comma-splice is the incorrect usage of a comma in a sentence. It can be fixed via removing the incorrect place of the comma, or by adding a subordinating/coordinating conjunction.

2. Syntax

Parallelism:

Parallel structure (also called parallelism) is the repetition of a chosen grammatical form within a sentence. By making each compared item or idea in your sentence follow the same grammatical pattern, you create a parallel construction.

2. Syntax

For example:

I like to eat ice cream, to run near the shore, and having a coffee with my friends.

The correct form would be:I like to eat ice cream, to run near the shore, and to have a coffee with my friends.

2. Syntax

Subject-Verb agreement Regular and Irregular Verbs Regular and Irregular Nouns

3. Grammar

Subject-Verb Agreement is:

Subject verb agreement simply means the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be singular or both need to be plural.

3. Grammar

Subject-Verb Agreement: For Example:They has a new a car -> They have a new car.Tony eat burgers -> Tony eats burgers.

One of my students are absent today?The United Nations don’t meet on Tuesdays?The Lebanese population are increasing?

3. Grammar

Regular and Irregular Verbs:

An irregular verb is one that does not conform to the usual rule for forming its simple past tense and its past participle.

Can you think of examples?

3. Grammar

Regular and Irregular Nouns:

An irregular noun is a noun that becomes plural by changing its spelling in other ways than adding an “s” or “es” to the end of the word. This change can happen in a variety of ways.

Can you think of examples?

3. Grammar

Even if the whole text is perfect in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and spelling, an editor must ask:

Is this text readable by the selected audience?Did I use vocabulary that fit the audience’s linguistic and cultural background?Did I domestify or foreignize the text?

4. Function

EDIT WELL…. Thank you