Are Proofreading Courses Worth It?

The answer is, yes, proofreading courses are worth it. Proofreading isn’t an innate talent; it’s a skill. There are lots of innate qualities that will make you predisposed to proofreading (such as vigilance and patience) but the skill itself really needs to be taught.

A good proofreading course will (or should!) provide you with:

1. A detailed description of what a proofreader does
2. An explanation of proofreading symbols
3. A glossary of terminology used by proofreaders, editors and printers
4. A comprehensive proofreading methodology
5. Advice on how to gain practical experience as a proofreader
6. An account of how and where to find work as a proofreader
7. Some kind of ‘ready reckoner’ to enable you to work out how much to charge as a proofreader
8. Lots of proofreading practice material
9. Lots of proofreading tips
10. Great value.

This last point is really the crux of this blog post.

There are lots of proofreading courses out there. Some of them are very good. Some of them are mediocre. In all honesty, I’ve yet to come across a truly bad proofreading course.

However, most of them, whether very good or mediocre provide very little in the way of value. They are, in a word, expensive. In some cases, they are ludicrously expensive.

But why are these proofreading courses so expensive, whilst The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course is just $48.99?

Does The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course cut corners?

No, it most certainly does not. It provides you with items 1 to 10 in the list above. And when it comes to the tenth item on that list, I believe it offers the greatest value of any proofreading course currently available online or anywhere else.

The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course does something those other proofreading courses don’t. It enables you to carry out self-evaluations.

Those other courses provide you with proofreading exercises that you then have to submit for evaluation. This is an expensive process for the course provider, requiring a certain amount of infrastructure and resource.

The thing is, these evaluations are pointless.

Why? Because the proofreading exercises they provide have a definitive set of right answers. They consist of existing pieces of writing that have had deliberate errors shoehorned into the text. If they were simply to provide you with the answers, you wouldn’t need to submit them for evaluation.

The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course does just that.

But, you ask, if they don’t evaluate me, how do I get my proofreading qualification?

The answer to that question is simple. You don’t need a proofreading qualification.

I’ve carried out professional proofreading work for decades and not once have I been asked to produce a proofreading qualification. Moreover, whilst I was responsible for hiring proofreaders, not once did I (or any HR department, for that matter) request a proofreading qualification from any potential candidate for a proofreading role or assignment.

If you find that shockingly unlikely, go into any employment website and search for proofreading roles. Scan through the skills and qualifications needed for the role and you won’t find a single reference to a proofreading qualification. Possibly an English qualification. Possibly a specific technical qualification if the role is in a specialized environment. But never a proofreading qualification.

Put simply, proofreading course don’t need to be expensive. The information can be conveyed in simple eBook form and you can very easily evaluate your own progress.

Are proofreading course worth it? Yes, in the sense that it’s always worth learning the skills, essential even. But are they worth it in the broader, financial sense of the word ‘worth’? To be frank, most of them are not.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some people who prefer the support structure of a more traditional training method: tutors, classrooms, assignments, assessments, qualifications. And I get that. Some people feel as if they’re not really learning unless all these components are present and correct. But I think most of us would rather save a chunk of cash and have a little faith in ourselves.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Thank you for your time.

Mike

If you're interested in giving The No-Nonsense Proofreading Course a try, click here to find out more.