Proofreading Workshop
Performance Schedule
Five three-hour sessions
Fifteen instructional hours
Or a customized schedule
Course Objective
The objective of this course is to improve the accuracy and confidence with which professionals proofread and edit their own work and the work of others. The workshop focuses on techniques for finding typographical errors, incorporating efficient ways to mark changes, and using in-house style consistently.
Specific Course Goals
Participants will
- better understand the many responsibilities of a proofreader
- become familiar with the in-house style (such as abbreviations, capitalization, hyphenation, and spelling)
- increase their self-confidence when suggesting changes in writing they review
- increase their speed and accuracy
- improve their ability to see errors
- understand the difference between proofreading and editing and between proofreading and editorial proofreading
- use standard proofreading symbols when marking documents (such as long documents, tables, contents, and bibliographies)
- refresh their understanding of challenging grammar and usage problems
- refresh their understanding of punctuation rules
- develop a method for mastering spelling demons
- be able to distinguish between some commonly confused words
Course Concept
The key to this course is relevance to the participants. Participants will complete exercises reinforcing the concepts introduced in class instruction.
The instructor serves as motivator, resource person, and evaluator of student progress.
Materials
The contractor will provide each participant with a loose-leaf binder with handouts.