As a proof reader, your eyes are your most important asset, so it’s vitally important that you afford them the proper care and respect.
The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course covers the importance of frequently resting your eyes and ensuring you attend regular appointments with your optician, but there is another area of eye care which is just as important.
Nutrition.
Poor eye health is often brought about as a result of poor diet. The right foods, containing the right vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and so forth, can play a significant role in ensuring clear and effective vision long into your twilight years. And that means an effective and sustained income long into your twilight years, too.
Now, you don’t need me to tell you about the importance of Vitamins A, C and E (commonly referred to as ‘antioxidant vitamins’); you’ll find them in green vegetables, oranges, tomatoes, raw carrots, peppers, brussel sprouts and so forth, and it goes without saying that they’re very good for your eyes.
However, less is known about the antioxidants Lutein and Zeaxanthin (now there's something to add to your dictionaries!). Collectively known as 'carotenoids', these antioxidants have been identified as contributing to a reduction in AMD or Age-related Macular Degeneration.
Both Lutein and Zeaxanthin occur naturally in a host of fruit and vegetables. Lutein can be found in mangos, bilberries, yellow peppers, kale, spinach and broccoli. Zeaxanthin occurs in oranges, sweet peppers, broccoli, corn, some lettuces, spinach, tangerines and eggs.
As you can see, some of the fruits and vegetables rich in eye-loving vitamins A, C and D are also reliable sources of Lutein and Zeaxanthin.
If anyone has any recipe ideas that contain a good helping of the fruits and vegetables listed above, let us know!
If anyone ever asks you what a proof reader does, for heaven’s sake don’t start talking about spelling mistakes and grammatical errors right off the mark. You’ll see their eyes glaze over in under a minute and they’ll do that stretching-mouth, flaring-nostrils thing which means they’re yawning but they don’t want to hurt your feelings so they’re trying to kind of seal it in.
Do you remember that scene in Dead Poets’ Society when Robin Williams as John Keating asks his class for which single endeavour language was developed? He receives the unimaginative answer of “To communicate” and swiftly counters with, “No! To woo women!”
Well, the ‘what does a proof reader do’ question should be tackled in pretty much the same way. That isn’t to say we proofread in order to dazzle the opposite sex (although, why not? Why not?), but it most certainly is about more than just spelling errors and grammatical blunders.
We proofread to spare blushes. We proofread to protect our employers and clients from embarrassment.
Let’s take a look at the kind of embarrassment, in fact the sheer humiliation which the strategic deployment of an effective proof reader would quickly have nipped in the bud.
In December of last year, a school teacher spotted a spelling error on Monmouthshire Council’s recycling bags. The instruction to ‘separate’ various materials for recycling purposes was printed as ‘seperate’.
An easy mistake to make, and not an uncommon one. Hardly humiliating, you might think.
However, the teacher in question, Helen Pritchard, took the recycling bag to her class at Llanvihangel Crucorney School and asked her 20 pupils if they could spot the mistake. Without exception, the primary level students nailed it. They then wrote a letter to the council (see below) expressing their disapproval.  A Proof Reader is Born Okay, having a classroom full of ten-year olds admonish you for poor spelling is a little embarrassing but still a few lengthy strides away from ‘humiliating’.
Well, this little episode made it into the local press.
Okay, we’re edging toward humiliating now, but we’re not all the way there yet.
Then, the piece was taken up by the BBC and featured on their website. The BBC website receives 1.2 million page views and 80 million hits per month.
Like I said: humiliating.
So, we proof readers don’t simply expose spelling errors and grammatical slip-ups. No, we shield our employers and clients from the searing heat of unwanted publicity in a media-soaked era. Okay, so we do that by trawling for spelling mistakes and poorly-executed English, but that's not going to hold anyone's attention at a dinner party, is it?
The worst proof readers, the very worst, perceive themselves as ‘guardians of language’, as defenders of ‘correct usage’. They actively seek out dangling modifiers, split infinitives, sentences ending with prepositions and so forth. Paradoxically, they appear to take pleasure in the displeasure that these contraventions cause them.
I have no problem with people who are niggled by such things. People get niggled by things. It’s human nature. Personally, I can’t stand the ‘beep’ that supermarket bar-code readers make. I don’t know why. Something about the pitch and the clipped quality of the thing (it seems to stop just as it starts) winds me up. I also find the writings of the likes of Lynn Truss very entertaining. However, it is only that: entertainment. Eats, Shoots and Leaves shouldn’t be perceived as some kind of instruction manual. It’s a piece of linguistic fluff, not a stick for beating ‘less educated’ people with. I mean, ‘not a stick with which to beat ‘less educated’ people’.
The proof reader who practically obliterates a document with red scrawl is not going to be very popular when further investigation reveals that the majority of his or her comments consist of little more than splitting hairs over split infinitives and the like.
If you’re proofreading an academic tract, then, yes, you probably need to ensure that the strictest rules of grammar are adhered to. But the vast majority of documents you will proofread are likely to be presented in a less formal style, and intentionally so. When proofreading, don’t ask yourself whether or not something is grammatically correct; ask yourself is it clear, effective and pleasant to read? Obviously, some grammatical errors are likely to call into question the professionalism of the copy’s originator, so, yes, all those apostrophes do need to be in the right place and we don’t want ‘you’re’ where we’re supposed to have ‘your’ etc.
As The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course relentlessly reiterates, let common sense be your guide.
In my experience, the proof reader who labours over ‘who versus whom’ is the proof reader who misses a glaring spelling error in 36-point Helvetica Black.
For an infinitely more eloquent take on this, I highly recommend this podcast by Stephen Fry.
Proof reader etiquette is a very simple thing. In fact, it can be summed-up in just two little words:
Don’t gloat.
During my time as an Operations Manager at Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited, I had to hire a number of proof readers. Some of these guys were old school proof readers and had been interrogating and signing proofs since not long after they’d made the transition from short trousers to long. Others however, were a little green around the gills and had been hired on the basis of their enthusiasm, attention to detail and sound command of the English language. These ‘young guns’, once they’d been around for a while and had made themselves comfortable, without fail, made the same schoolboy error.
They gloated.
At some point, they came across a spelling error or grammatical gaffe so outrageous that they just couldn’t resist the urge to make an issue of it. They would make a sarcastic comment in the margin or show the shameful blunder to their colleagues or even take the offending proof to the clanger’s originator and warm their hands on the glow from their blushing cheeks.
Firstly, this is just plain rude. We’re only human. We make mistakes. All of us. That’s why we have proof readers. Really, as a proof reader, you ought to be praising the sheer fallibility of humankind. Without it, you’d be out of a job.
Secondly, what goes around comes around. We're only human. We make mistakes. All of us. Including proof readers. And God help the gloating proof reader who, in a moment of lapsed concentration, allows even the tiniest error to slip through his or her fingers.
I’ve actually seen people queue for an opportunity to indulge in a little counter-gloating.
Be warned.
Be nice.
Mike
Well, this is it. Day one. The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course is now available to buy.
It's taken the better part of a year to condense 20 years of proofreading experience into a single, no-nonsense ebook. I'm very pleased with the result and I hope you'll agree.
But this website isn't just a piece of elaborate salesmanship intended to convince you to part with your hard-earned cash; it's also a resource in its own right, containing a wealth of proofreading knowledge and information and lots of links to useful websites.
So, please subscribe to our RSS feed. You won't want to miss out.
Next time, we'll be looking at proofreading etiquette.
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