Second Thots

One of the things that makes proofreading so difficult for anyone, and not just a freelance writer like myself, is that we often want to read into words things that aren't actually written. We have an idea of what we think something reads, or should read, instead of what it actually does read. I think it's just human nature. People read into things all sorts of stuff. It's the way we constantly interpret and re-interpret the world.

So, obviously, the challenge for any proofreader is to put human nature aside and look for the tendencies that result in the most common types of reading and writing errors.

Again, just my thought of the day.

UPDATE (10:50 am): Just had another thought about proofreading and writing errors. One mistake that I often find that people make, especially in writing Facebook updates, is that they change their thoughts mid-sentence, but forget to change some of the words in accordance with their thoughts.

So, for example, someone might begin to write: "I once saw a dog walk in the park...." They then change their mind and want to write the following: "I love watching dogs walking in the park...." However, what they end up writing is this: "I once love watching dogs walking in the park."

Clearly, something got lost in the editing, and is something to look out for any time you're proofreading something.