Editing or proofreading
You may have heard terms of ‘editing’ or ‘proofreading’ so many times before but probably you are not familiar with them. We are going to show you what they are and which one is needed to get your paper published.
There are several steps that you need to take to get your papers published, and each of these steps requires a particular specialty. Editing and proofreading are two essential steps of the publishing process, applied after typing. Undoubtedly, they are more sensitive steps. Therefore, in the following, we will discuss them.
So why are they so important?
Editing and proofreading are so important for authors because they know that even the smallest spelling problem may lead to a misunderstanding of the concept and meaning, which lowers the value of your work.
Differences between editing and proofreading
You may be wondering what the differences are between editing and proofreading. Many may consider them the same thing, but the reality is that they are two separate activities and specialties. In the following, we will discuss the differences between proofreading and editing.
Each paper should be reviewed in a variety of ways, including content, style of expression, credibility, accuracy, order, and punctuation. This review is called editing. The editors are obliged to correct grammatical, repetitive, redundancy, exaggerated, and erratic phrases while observing the style of the author. In other words, editing makes your paper easier to understand, and it might happen several times during the writing process.
But proofreading is considered the last step of preparing texts after writing and before submitting where errors in spelling, punctuation, and syntax that occur during writing are corrected. The proofreaders are obliged to review the paper in terms of technical errors such as font and text integrity and correcting mistakes hidden from the editor, such as grammatical errors, punctuation, and other issues. In other words, proofreading makes your paper ready to publish (or submit), and it usually happens once.
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A highly valuable tip
Keep it in mind that it is better for someone other than the author to conducts editing and proofreading. Because many authors have already confessed that because they were the writers themselves, some of the errors remain undetected due to the familiarity and adaptability of the author’s mind with text.
Conclusion
In answer to the question at the beginning of this article about which of these two services, editing and proofreading, are needed, we can assert that any written content needs them to lessen errors caused by various factors such as distraction, fatigue, sleepiness, etc. that may occur during writing.
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