Why do you need a professional proofreader?

You did it! You finished your manuscript, your academic paper, your ad campaign, or your personal statement for law school admission. Whether by revising the work yourself or having it pass through several rounds of developmental editing, copyediting, and line editing, you are satisfied with it and ready to publish.

But wait! Have you had your work professionally proofread yet?

You might be thinking that you do not have the time for this. You are reasonably certain that the copy is good enough after all the revisions and time spent reading it over and over to yourself. You have deadlines to meet, your next project is waiting, and funds are short.

Why should you consider hiring a professional proofreader anyway? You are confident in your abilities as a writer and have revised the copy hundreds of times. Or maybe you had hired developmental, copy and line editors and are happy with their work. Your colleagues, friends, and family provided tons of constructive feedback. You ran your work through spellcheck and asked ChatGPT for feedback.

Isn’t all the revision and proofreading you have completed on your own good enough? The reality is that revising your own copy is difficult because as you read your own work, errors tend to get skipped over as you focus on different aspects of your work. Even the most seasoned writers make mistakes.

Relying on a computer application for grammar and spelling might be enough, but computer programs are not infallible and often get things wrong. Computer programs cannot catch errors in dates, names, and incorrect word usage for example. Often times, the grammar suggestions made by computers applications are incorrect. Artificial intelligence (AI) programs have limited capabilities to create engaging original copy and many organizations explicitly reject content generated by AI.

After all the hard work you put into producing your copy, can you afford the risk of an error hiding in your final copy? Resumes are a perfect example of this risk. Companies can receive 1000s of resumes for a single position, especially in today’s job market. Having a typographical error leap off the page is how your resume ends up in the shred pile, and you lose out on the perfect job.

What about a personal statement for admission to college or graduate school? You can have the most engaging, interesting background to share to the admissions panel, but they will not be able to look past embarrassing typos and grammatical errors to see how your character aligns with the school’s reputation, potentially resulting in a denial to your dream school.

Errors can very sneakily hide in copy, either from being introduced accidently as you revise or from becoming accustomed to how your work sounds as you read it over and over. If you want the best shot at your work being successfully received by an audience, you should hire a professional proofreader before sending it to the printer or uploading it to the web. Even the most seasoned writers make mistakes and it is very difficult to catch all of them, especially if you rely solely on yourself to proofread your own work. Perfect copy is the ultimate goal in successful writing, and it is achievable, especially if you have professional assistance.