Quote:
Originally Posted by doubleshuffle
I've just proofread a book which had about four dozen typos in 720 pages. I think that's a bit more than average, but not unusual, and not a problem at all.
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If you are talking solely about quantity, I'd agree. But the question of quality remains (ie, are these errors that can mislead or cause the reader to draw the wrong conclusion?). It matters greatly what the subject matter is: for example, in a novel, on pages 5, 7, 30, and 55 the heroine had bright blue eyes but on pages 22, 61, and 66 her eyes were a pale green vs. in a medical treatise the dosage on pages 5, 7, 30, and 55 was 25 mg but on page 66 it was 25 g. The color of the eyes is likely not to be significant in terms of plot (unless, of course, that is what distinguishes one twin sister from the other) whereas giving the wrong dosage can be lethal or can make the drug ineffective (25 mg vs 25 g), making the typo, even if it occurs just once, significant.