What does a proofreader do?

There are so many misconceptions around proofreading, so I thought I’d do a post about what a proofreader can do for you. I’ve been proofreading and editing professionally since 2017, for both publishers and authors, and I’ve got proofreading training under my belt. I’ve also been on the other side, and hired a proofreader for my own books. So I speak from experience when I say it’s much more than just looking for a few typos or giving something a quick glance-over.

Misconceptions about proofreaders

Lots of authors assume that proofreading is a quick and easy job, where you read something and pick out a few typos. This isn’t the case!

Many people also assume that anyone with a good command of English (such as a teacher or someone who reads a lot) can do the job of a professional proofreader. These things are a great start for launching a career in proofreading or other editorial jobs (I have an English degree too). If you’re an author and don’t have the budget to hire a proofreader, these people can help you out. That said, there are certain tasks involved in proofreading that you can only learn from training and publishing experience, and a lot of authors don’t realise how much goes into proofreading!

First, it’s probably helpful to understand the stages of publication, especially when it comes to editorial.

The publishing editorial stages

Let’s assume you’ve written a book, self-edited it as best you can, and you’ve landed a book deal or decided to self-publish. The editorial process will probably go something like this:

Developmental editing (also known as big-picture editing), where you work on broader things like plot, structure, characterisation, and so on
Copy or line editing, which involves polishing your work at a sentence-by-sentence level
Formatting or typesetting, where the book is laid out out for print and the different elements are designed (depending on the publisher, this could come either before proofreading, or after)
Proofreading, which tends to be the final stage to check for errors before a book is published

Proofreading is so important, because it’s the last chance you have to catch errors! If a proofreader is working on a fully formatted, designed proof (a copy of the manuscript with all the design elements in place, in PDF format), they’ll have lots of design elements to check over.

Here’s an example of the initial pages of a formatted proof. It’s for my own novella The Darkest Curse and the formatting was done by Lisa Gilliam:

If you think about the formatting or typesetting stage, where a book is laid out for print, you’ll begin to understand why a proofreader does more than just checking for typos! They often have to check for any design errors that may impact the book when it’s printed, such as problems with fonts or images.

Proofreading is a different type of reading

Another thing to bear in mind is that proofreading is a very different type of reading. Proofreaders are trained to read much more slowly than they would when reading for pleasure, because they have to be eagle-eyed and spot nitpicky mistakes that a regular reader might not (such as a single letter or punctuation mark being in the wrong font).

Proofreaders also have to carefully weigh up their decisions and whether to make a change, because the proofreader’s job is to interfere as little as possible. Too many changes might risk introducing more errors, especially on a designed PDF.

So what does a professional proofreader do?

A proofreader does so many different things depending on the nature of the job! Here’s a list of all the tasks a proofreader could potentially do.

Design and layout

Making sure all the design elements are there, and that nothing is missing
Checking and flagging widows and orphans
Checking page numbers for consistency
Checking chapter headers for consistency
Making sure design elements are consistent (such as ornamental decorations on chapter headers or scene breaks)
Comparing illustrations or maps to the text to ensure correctness
Marking up incorrect paragraph indents
Checking for awkward word breaks (such as the word therapist breaking over a line as the | rapist)
Checking for word “stacks” (too many lines at the end of a page ending in the same word)
Flagging incorrectly placed design elements
Making sure all fonts are correct and consistent, including italics, bold type, etc
Making sure all text is justified correctly
Checking footnotes and endnotes
Checking running heads are correct and consistent (these are what you see along the top of the page when you read a book: the author name and the book title)
Flagging any lines that are too tightly packed, or too spaced-out

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word choice

Correcting typos and misspelt words
Correcting incorrect grammar
Correcting punctuation
Deleting any duplicate letters or words
Ensuring consistency of word choice (such as toward or towards)
Enforcing US or UK word variants (for example, making sure a book in UK English hasn’t slipped into using US spelling)
Making sure dashes and hyphens are used correctly and consistently
Checking abbreviations and acronyms

Front matter and endmatter

Checking contents page matches chapter headings and page numbers
Proofreading the copyright page
Making sure any clickable links in a ebook work correctly
Checking ISBN numbers are correct
Checking the author’s social media handles are correct, if given
Proofreading additional matter such as acknowledgements, author bio, references, etc

Continuity

Spotting any missing scenes or chapters
Making sure characters have the same names (and that they’re not spelt multiple different ways), and that their physical appearance is the same – hair colours, eye colours, etc
Flagging any glaring continuity problems
Checking that timelines, numbers, dates, and measurements are correct

Other tasks

Ensuring house style is applied (a set of guidelines a publisher has for their publications)
Writing queries to the author
Creating checklists to keep track of tasks
Creating a style sheet to track editorial decisions (a copyeditor usually does this, but sometimes a proofreader will be asked to create one if the copyeditor didn’t)
Communicating with the author and possibly inputting their preferences
Checking over an author’s corrections, if required
Using proof-correction marks, also known as BSI symbols, to make corrections, if required (this is rare these days – I’ve never been asked to use them, despite being trained in how to do it!) – you can see an example of them here
Proofreading “against” a copyedit if required (i.e. checking the proof against the copyedited version of the text)
Looking for and flagging any ambiguity or confusing sentences

There are so many tasks involved that I might have even missed a few, but hopefully this post has given you a solid idea of what a proofreader can do, and why proofreading is so important!

For more resources on writing and publishing, check out my resource library.