A Practical Guide to Proofreading Your Own Writing

By How to Write Short Stories with Lasting Impact
Comments 35
15 Jul 2026

A Practical Guide to Proofreading Your Own Writing

Why Your Own Typos Are Invisible

You have read that sentence four times. You know it says what you meant. Unfortunately, your brain is not reading what is on the page — it is reading what it expects to find there. This is why professional proofreaders exist, and why so many writers cheerfully submit work containing "pubic" instead of "public". The good news is that you can trick your brain out of its autopilot, and the techniques below are the ones working editors and novelists use when there is no one else to check their work.

The trick is not to try harder. It is to change the conditions so your well-worn familiarity with the text stops working.

Change the Format to Break the Spell

The single most effective proofreading technique is simply to see your words differently. Your brain recognises patterns in font, layout and line length, and it skips over the familiar.

Change the font to something with a very different shape from your usual one. It forces you to look at the letters rather than the shape of the words.
Increase the size to around 150 per cent. Bigger text means fewer visible words at once, which slows you down.
Change the column width so the line breaks fall in different places. Manuscripts are especially prone to errors at the end of lines.
Print it. Nothing beats paper for spotting mistakes, even now. A paper page also lets you cover the lines below with a sheet of card so you read one line at a time.
Read it out loud. Your mouth trips over missing words, doubled hard, and clunky rhythms long before your eye notices them. If you cannot read aloud without embarrassment, nobody else will get through it quietly either.

Read Backwards and Slowly

Reading from the last sentence to the first removes meaning and leaves only words. It feels ridiculous and it works, especially for a final typo sweep on a finished piece. For longer work, take it in passes: one pass for spelling, one for punctuation, one for names and numbers. Trying to check everything at once means you check almost nothing properly.

Slow down deliberately. A proofreading speed of roughly 1,000 words an hour is entirely normal for careful work — that is roughly six minutes a page. If you are racing, you are reading, not proofreading.

Use a Checklist for Repeat Offenders

Most writers make the same handful of mistakes over and over. Keep a running list of yours and check it before every submission. These are the ones that come up most often in UK publishing.

Consistency of spelling. Choose British or American spelling and stick to it, unless a character or publication demands otherwise. Watch for -ise/-ize, colour, travelled, practise as a verb and practice as a noun.
Names and titles. Check every character, place and brand name against your own notes. Mary becomes Marie, then Maria, and nobody notices until the copy-editor does.
Numbers, dates and units. Is it the fourteenth of March or the third of April? Nine o'clock or ten? These details are where proofreading errors do the most damage to credibility.
Quotation marks and apostrophes. Use curly quotes consistently, and put full stops inside them only if the punctuation belongs to the quoted words. Watch the lowly apostrophe — it's is it is, its is possessive.
Comma splices and run-ons. Two independent clauses need a conjunction, a semicolon or a full stop, not a cheerful comma.
Dangling modifiers. "Having read the manuscript, the ending still confused me" says the ending read the manuscript. The subject of the opening phrase must be the subject of the main clause.
Hyphens and dashes. Use en dashes with spaces or em dashes without, but pick one and be consistent. Hyphenate compound adjectives before a noun: a well-written book but the book is well written.
Repeated and missing words. Search your document for the the, and and, of of and that that. It takes ten seconds and catches more errors than any read-through.

Know What You Are Looking For

Proofreading and editing are different jobs and should not be done at the same time. Editing is about structure, clarity and whether a paragraph earns its place. Proofreading is the last, mechanical stage: spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency. If you are still deciding whether to cut a scene, you are not proofreading, and you will miss the typos because you are thinking about the story.

When you spot something larger — a plot hole, a repetitive sentence, a scene that does not work — do not fix it mid-pass. Note it and keep going, then return to it after the proofread is finished.

Give It Time and Get Another Pair of Eyes

Distance is a tool. Put the work away for at least a day, longer if you can. Errors that were invisible at midnight are often obvious the next morning. Do not proofread when you are tired, rushed or reading on a phone screen while walking to the bus.

Finally, accept your limits. Every writer has a blind spot, and even professional proofreaders get their own work checked. If you are preparing to submit to an agent or to self-publish, budget for a proper proofread from someone who has never read the words before. Until then, print it, slow down, read it aloud, and work the checklist. Your readers will never know how many mistakes you caught — which is exactly the point.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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