proofreading and editing

Yesterday evening, I checked my blog to glance at my latest entry and was horrified to see that I had misspelled the title as 'Pink-fowering currant' instead of 'Pink-flowering currant.' (I made the correction.) Which first of all shows that the instant spell-check (indicated by a red underline) that I've come to rely on doesn't work on entry titles. And second, it goes to show that proofreaders need their work proofread just like everybody else.

You see, I've worked as a proofreader before - in fact, because of the circumstances at one job, I saw first-hand that it isn't good procedure to have the proofreader make corrections to copy and then send the work straight to press. It's always a good idea to have a fresh set of eyes looking for mistakes and typos, hence the proofreader marks up mistakes on the copy, the copy gets sent back to the typesetter or designer for corrections, then the proofreader rechecks the corrections. At least that's more or less how it should be done.

The most writing I've ever really done is with this blog, and now I can see where the role of the editor comes into play. It's that fresh set of eyes and different perspective that is so valuable, something I'm missing when I post my entries. Like spotting typos, it's nice to have objectivity to catch 'mistakes' in ideas, logic, etc.

Another thing I'd like to mention about yesterday's typo: I had submitted that same photograph to the local newspaper, also to be published around my mother's birthday, a year or two ago. And just like I did, the newspaper printed it with a typographical mistake in the accompanying copy. Oh well, the main thing is the photograph anyway.