GeoPublish Tutorial Part 12 – Proof Reading

I half mentioned this a few times already butt wee are really going two focus onthe topic this thyme. To ensure that you're publication will bee anticipated, red and enjoyed ewe need to be extremely care fool withyore spelling, typing and gramma.

So how was that? Maybe try reading that first paragraph again. Do you feel like continuing to read this column? What if every article was written with such an obvious lack of caring and attention? Would you pay to subscribe to such a publication? There are a few simple steps to follow to make sure you don't send out your publication in such poor condition.

For starters, print off your geoWrite documents and then grab a red pen or a highlighter. By printing off your documents you will get a general idea of the length and how much space you need to allow in your geoPublish document. Take the red pen and your printout to a comfortable location and read each article through. Circle any typos or spelling mistakes that you find. Then go back into geoWrite and, as you fix the mistakes, draw a line through each circle on your printouts.

Once you have done that print off the files again and do the same thing. If you have a spouse, friend or child nearby give them the red pen and ask them to read the articles and highlight any errors they find. The reason for getting someone else to read the articles is that we are too familiar with the material and often don't really read what we have written. After reading a piece a number of times we will skim as we read and can skip right over obvious errors.

The next thing that you should do is leave the articles on the shelf for a few days and then come back to them again with your red pen. This helps to lessen the familiarity and you will be surprised at how many times you will see an error you hadn't noticed before.

After all of your reading and re-reading and getting someone else to check the articles make sure that you run each and every piece through geoSpell. Keep a real dictionary close by so you can look up any flagged words that you aren't sure of.

While geoSpell is not the best spell checker around it is the only one for geoWrite articles. There are two main reasons for using geoSpell. I consider myself a very good speller and typer but the familiarity issue rears its head at times and I miss things in spite of all of my proof-reading. The other point is that importing articles from other word processors is not a perfect process. As is evident in the first paragraph (and far too many publications) the spacing between words can often get lost which results in some odd combinations.

When you are satisfied that you have corrected all of the mistakes continue with the creation of your geoPublish document. When the entire project is complete print it off again and read everything all over again. This time pay particular attention to the headlines, picture captions and any other special text you have added.

Once you have gone over everything and made all of these corrections you are ready to print off your publication and prepare it for distribution.

You may think that proofreading and spell checking is something that you can do quite quickly but to do it right takes time. Don't underestimate the returns it will pay. People need to know that the person they rely on for information cares enough to invest the time to present the news in a clear, concise and error free manner. If that is not the case any paying subscribers will not continue to invest their money in your efforts.

This point also fits in with article #8. If you edit an article that you received from someone else you should send it back to them for approval to ensure you haven't cut in the wrong places. You could also request that the author cut the article down to size for you and then you will be assured not to affect the tone of the piece.

Next time we will look at another method for importing graphics into our geoPublish documents.

Until then, enGEOy your Commodore!

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