Proofreading tip

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

You're not the only one.

Things that obviously should be symmetrical but aren't (one of a row of square items slightly out of line, for instance), mini-blinds with the concave side toward the room, slightly open drawers, and, yes, those broadcaster logos, all drive me nuts. And lower-case forum logos (also greengrocers' apostrophes, misused commas, inconsistent spacing, and that thing people do with semicolons).

What do you think of words like phone and paper, as in the shortened versions of telephone and newspaper?

'phone and 'paper would be the correct use of apostrophes for those words, but I find them really annoying. Greengrocers would be another — 'grocers.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by petkusj

So I’ve taken to having the computer read back to me what I’ve written and follow along. In Microsoft Word, just open the Speech window (in Office 2004 for Mac I have to right click in one of the toolbars), select the text you want spoken, and click Speak Selection.

Good tip, Petkusj. I'll give that a try. Thanks.

[petkusj]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

Good tip, Petkusj. I'll give that a try. Thanks.

You're welcome. I'm amazed this has generated as much interest as it has. Oh, I can't remember if I warned people about this: there are some words that the computer voice pronounces in such a way as to drive a railroad spike through your brain, and of course it is a word that you use again and again.

In my case, the word was "yeah," which the computer pronounces in a slovenly dead end kid kind of way that makes you want to smack somebody.

And in the book I'm writing now, the word is "miss." And it's a Regency mystery, so the word is said a lot.

[randyflycaster]

Where is the speech window?

It took me awhile, but I finally found a good proofreader.

Randy

[petkusj]

Originally Posted by randyflycaster

Where is the speech window?

It is kind of hard to find. I had to CTRL or right click somewhere in one of the existing button bars and selected it from the list.

Or from the Tools menu, choose Customize/Customize Toolbars/Menus.

Jennifer

[mish]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

People like that aren't as common as you think, and the chance of finding one within your immediate family are pretty remote. I believe it's a very mild form of autism that makes such people strive for perfection, and people who can do it well also find it impossible to watch TV with broadcaster logos in the corner of the screen. Mistakes, or things that are "wrong" just jump out of the page (or screen) that "normal" people wouldn't notice.

I'm a bit of a typo hound myself and do provide typo counts at the bottom of my reviews, but I've never really considered "very mild autism" as a possible reason for it. I don't consider myself a perfectionist either. With that said, I must admit I really, really, really hate those logos at the bottom of the TV screen.

[Marseille]

To some extent, I'm blessed with horrendous memory problems (though it's less of a blessing in other arenas ). As a result, proofing something short (in the 6k word range) after a single good night's sleep usually allows me to get past much of the reading what I remember writing roadblock. But I haven't yet put myself to the test of proofing something much, much longer, or for that matter, proofing something literary where I might well be more likely to miss the trees for the forest.

I'm going to tuck this one away to try on my first novel. Thanks petkusj.

[petkusj]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

I'm going to tuck this one away to try on my first novel. Thanks petkusj.

You're very welcome, David!

Jennifer