OK, we’re word nerd perfectionists at Brilliant Ink and we want our clients to see our very best work every time. Proofreading is a vital step for us and done well it can make the difference between sparkling, accurate prose and…well, the kind of Internet spelling and grammar horrors that give us the chills.We love to share, so this post gives some practical advice on how anyone can proofread like a pro.1. First run the document through your computer spellchecker. This won’t catch everything, but it’s a useful first step and will pick up incorrectly spelled words together with missing or inaccurate punctuation and spacing.2. Read the document aloud. It sounds odd and may earn you strange looks from colleagues but it will help with two common problems, over long sentences and unnecessarily complex language. As you read aloud, notice the places where you stumble, run out of breath or would use different words if you were talking to friends or family.3. When you read out loud you can hear if you sound like a person or a robot. You should aim to sound human.4. Read the piece backwards, starting at the end. Again, this sounds odd but there is a good reason behind it. The mind plays tricks and we often read what we expect to see. For instance, we often fail to notice duplicate words. When you read backwards, you are forced to concentrate on every word individually and this makes it easier to pick up duplicates, spelling mistakes and the times when you have used “there” instead of “their.”5. Put the piece aside for at least an hour or two, and a day or more if you have the time. This is another trick to break the mind’s habit of showing us what we expect to read. When you have just written something, your intention is fresh in your mind; if you leave it alone for awhile, you become less familiar and can see errors that you failed to notice on your first pass.6. Repeat step 1 and run the copy through a spellchecker. Often in making changes small errors of spacing and layout creep in. A final pass will allow you to correct these errors.Happy writing and proofing!- Alison Harrison, Communications Strategist and writer