Do you feel to appreciate a document which is error free? Of course a document without any mistakes creates a good impression on the readers. One of the most important element of any document is Documentation Review/Proofreading. It involves taking care of all the modifications required in terms of product functionality, its grammar, syntax and the layout of the document. Reviewing follows through many steps from self review > peer review> expert review.
After undergoing through all these phases, if mistakes still persist in a document then the reviewer needs to bring some changes in the pattern of his/her reviewing. Of course you would say there is MS Word to check for spellings, spacing error or syntax but do remember that word would give us choices as according to their own automation system but it is we who would decide which word or syntax goes perfect with the writing.
Here are some reviewing tips that can be followed when reviewing a document:
Concentrate and Avoid Distraction
Try to review the writings in a place free from distractions. Set a target to review a minimum number of pages without distraction of any kind. Make sure that you are not interrupted in between. That hampers your concentration. When your mind is all at peace, then only you will be able to deliver your maximum output.
Pay more attention towards words that sound similar but may have different meanings
The most common examples to illustrate such word are “accept” and “except” or “then” and “than”. Also take care of Homonyms (that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings). Example of a simple homonym is “left (past tense)” and “left (opposite of right)”.
Pay attention to capitalization of words, numbering and punctuation
This is one of the aspects which should be taken care of precisely. Imagine a long sentence without any punctuation. The user will be all confused reading the whole sentence. However, if you break the long sentence with help of punctuation, the presentation would seem to be good.
Emphasis on the proper capitalization of word; its important when you want to stress on a particular word. Also, be careful with numbers; adding an extra zero may create a huge difference.
Importance of Contractions and Apostrophes
Contractions are the shortened form of two word and an apostrophes is inserted for the missing letter. For e.g. we write “do not” as “don’t”. Apostrophes and contraction go along with each other.
Some of the critical Apostrophes mistakes are as follows:
Incorrect
Dont
Correct
Don’t
Incorrect
Didnt
Correct
Didn’t
Incorrect
Doesnt
Correct
Doesn’t
Incorrect
Im
Correct
I’m
Incorrect
Thats
Correct
That’s
Incorrect
Isnt
Correct
Isn’t
Make sure that you take care of these small mistakes. Though very rare but these mistakes can be made most frequently. Also remember to maintain consistency in your writing pattern. If you are using contractions and apostrophes together, use it all over the content or else follow the simple writing style.
Break the document into small chunks of document
When we are given a long document to review, it is our tendency to review it in a hurry to finish it as soon as possible. Reviewing a document all at once is a tedious process. In order to overcome this hurdle, break the document into smaller number of pages for a specific limit of time. Take break in between the reviewing so that you could freshen up your mind. Although this might take a bit more time, but the quality of the document would improve as you would review it with more concentration.
Last but not the least; get it reviewed by someone who would be reading it for the first time
It happens that a writer who reviews his own document may miss out on some of the mistakes while reviewing because his mind has already been saturated with the writing that he may override a mistake. The best thing for such a situation is to get it reviewed by someone else. In that case, there would be more chances of finding new mistakes.
The Other ways of Reviewing:
The Text to Speech software helps with the proofreading part. Installing this software helps to convert your text into audio form. Thus you would be able to hear whatever you have written.
Some other innovative methods of reviewing are to read it backwards,read from right towards the left or to read it aloud. It a kind of brain working exercises where your mind becomes more alert.