If you have never used a proofreading service before, you might be wondering why so many people are hiring professional proofreaders today. Proofreading services have long been used by academics, professionals, and students, but for those who have never come across them, it may be unclear how proofreaders really add value to your work.
The purpose of this article, therefore, is to describe the main ways that proofreaders improve your written documents. If you ever end up using a proofreading service, you’ll be in a good position to understand exactly what you are paying for after reading this article. Even if you are uninterested in proofreading services, this article may help you do it effectively yourself.
Human spellchecking
Automated spelling and grammar checkers like Grammarly and the system embedded into Microsoft Word are indispensable, as we all know. However, the best spellchecker in the world – as of 2021 – cannot find even some of the most basic errors. For this reason, using a human rather than an underdeveloped computer system to double-check your use of language, as well as your writing style, is still the best way to improve your documents.
Getting a second opinion
Although a proofreader’s job is simply to address surface-level issues for the final draft of the document, including spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes, hiring a professional to perform this service on your writing creates a valuable opportunity to receive a second opinion on your work.
Since hiring a proofreader means that you will have an expert checking over your document, you can use this opportunity to ask them questions about their general thoughts on your writing, your arguments, or your chosen structure. If you are in need of detailed advice in any of these areas, it may be worthwhile to consider a more comprehensive editing service.
Banishing the banal
Whether you are writing a press release, an academic essay, or a journal article, you should force yourself to remove every cliché or idiom from your document. Readers want to see original thoughts and clever, unique phrasing, not canned sentiments. Therefore, if you have any mundane words or over-the-top and conventional similes or metaphors in your writing, a proofreader will be able to spot them and get rid of them in a natural way.
Active versus passive voice
It is extremely common, even among people who speak English as their mother tongue, to write sentences in the passive rather than the active voice. Rarely is this desirable, however, and this is especially the case in academic writing. When you’ve finished the final draft of your document, going back over it and removing all instances of passive voice use can be very tedious. For this reason alone, hiring a professional proofreader is a no-brainer!
Saving time
Perhaps the main area where professional proofreading services really add value to your work relates to the time you save. Many writers are surprised at just how time-consuming the proofreading process is, even for relatively simple and small pieces of writing. Therefore, if you outsource this challenging and lengthy task to a professional, you’ll get it completed more effectively and, most importantly, in good time.
Professional Proofreading Services 