When you have that term paper due next month and
need someone to read it through one last time
before the deadline, let us handle it.
When you want one more intensive grammar check before
you turn in that short story to the judges, let us
handle it.
When you need a fresh pair of eyes to go over your
rough draft before you submit it for the first time,
let us handle it.
What does having your work proofed by us mean?
We check for, at the very least, usage, punctuation, spelling, complete sentences, and missing words. These are some of
the most common mistakes made by people who have been looking at the same letters, words, phrases, sentences, pages, and ideas
for days, weeks, and months straight.
SPELLING
I know you think your word processor does this for you and, technically, it does. But the problem is 'technically'. We
change 'their's to 'there's if that's what needs to be done. Example: "Wee don't wont another flight in this hose."
is corrected as "We don't want another fight in this house." Your word processor may not pick up on the "misspelled"
words in the first sentence because they are actual words.
PUNCTUATION
We make sure that commas, are not, over- or, mis-used. We make sure that; colons: and semicolons; are used properly. capitalization
(or the lack thereof) is Also considered. Exclamation marks, question marks, apostrophes, brackets, dashes and more are checked
for proper usage.
USAGE
This is one of the most common mistakes we see. This is when we focus on the difference between 'everyday' and 'every
day' . People mix these up quite a bit. 'Everyday' is used to mean 'mediocre' or 'average'. For instance, "That's your
everyday paint job." or "He's your everyday thief." 'Every day' is used to mean 'each 24-hour period'. For
instance, "I eat pancakes every day." or "It rained every day for a week." There are other words and phrases
that are similar and have this sort of relationship with one another. We sniff those out for you.
COMPLETE SENTENCES
I understand that in a lot of story-writing incomplete sentences are frequently used, so in those submissions (even for
S.O.S.ers) it will merely be pointed out and you can change it if you want to. A sentence usually has a subject, verb, and
object. "Sharon hit Chris." Sometimes people overlook that one of these three is missing in a sentence where they
belong. Usually this happens in long sentences with lots of commas, semicolons, and the like.
MISSING WORDS
This can be one of the biggest mistakes for people that are pressed for time and have to read over their work quickly
before they move on to another project. Especially if it is a piece that they've had to read time and time again. They tend
to leave out word or two. They're usually small words like 'a' in the previous sentence.
WHO NEEDS THIS SITE
The services on this site are best suited for people closely described in the following examples.
EXAMPLE ONE: The Swamped College Student
Alice is taking four classes this semester, three of which are writing-intensive. Let's say the writing-intensive courses
are Sociology, Communication, and Humanities. She would write the Soc paper and send it to us while she began working on the
Comm paper. We send the Soc paper back, she sends us the Comm paper, and begins writing the Hum paper. We send the Comm paper
back and she sends us the Hum paper. During her freed-up time from trying to proofread and self-edit these three papers, she's
working on assignments for her fourth class, Physics. In that first month, she has turned in three relatively, grammatically
solid papers and aced a Physics test she had plenty of time to study for.
EXAMPLE TWO: The Frantic CEO
Erika has her own catering business. She needs menus to send to clients, someone to proofread her website, and all the
while she's traveling to the other side of the country to meet with clients and set up another business deal along with another
building for a second site on the other coast. Erika would send us an electronic copy of what's going to be on the menus,
give us the URL to her site, and by the time she got back home she'd have a grammatically stable menu and website for all
of her potential customers to see.
EXAMPLE THREE: The Anxious Contestant
Andrew is entering his short story in a local contest. He's read over the piece again and again, but needs a way to be
certain that it is a clean, comprehensible work. He sends his short story to us. By the time he gets home from taking a relaxing
weekend road trip with his girlfriend, the story in sitting in his inbox, edited and ready to submit.
EXAMPLE FOUR: The Struggling ESL Student
Tuan is a Vietnamese exchange student who is having issues with a lot of his papers coming back to him filled with red
ink and strange symbols he doesn't quite understand. He's trying really hard to learn English correctly, but he doesn't have
time to work, go to class, meet people, find his way around town during the day, study, sleep, eat AND agonize over his English
grammar. He sends one of the essays he's writing to us, we point out the problem points and tell him why they're incorrect.
He gets his work proofed and notes on English grammar he can remember for the future.
