Imagine you and your sales team are in an important prospect meeting. Everyone spent weeks preparing, practicing the stats, walking through solutions, and role-playing Q&A. The meeting’s going well. The prospect is highly engaged in the conversation. Your colleague projects the PowerPoint on the wall and lots of great ideas are shared. He walks through the deck, confident in the team’s solutions, and on the next slide… BAM! A misspelled word glares out at the room.

You then realize that the next ten slides are packed with data: slide after slide of charts and graphs. Some of the information is relevant to the sales pitch, while other slides tout data that isn’t necessarily relevant to the conversation. Engagement dwindles.

You feel your face flush with embarrassment. You take a quick glance around the room and notice one of the HR managers whisper to her colleague. You overhear, “This wasn’t necessarily what we asked for. If they can’t get the sales pitch right, how can we ensure we’re getting accurate data and they’re even considering our needs?”

You’re not only uneasy, you’ve most likely lost the sale.

This exemplifies just one scenario of how your reputation and credibility are on the line each day. Attention must be given to everything you produce, from email to LinkedIn posts, benefit guides to CEO speeches, and yes, that final sales presentation.

As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.”

Creating good content is more than putting a few words on a page and hitting “publish.” The writing and editing process takes time—from concepts and production to editing and proofreading.

Sadly, the last phase is often rushed or simply left undone, as we race to get the material off our desks. If you really want to shine, take the time to edit and proofread appropriately.

Editing vs. Proofreading: What’s the difference?

It’s important to distinguish between the proofreading process and editing your writing. Editing involves improving your piece’s substance—the content, structure, and clarity of what you have written. This might involve moving major sections of text to improve the flow or clarify your ideas. Here are a few questions you should ask to help with your editing process:

• Is the content interesting, clear, comprehensive, and easy to understand?

• Does it tell a story?

• Does the content flow well? Do the transitions make sense?

• Is the tone appropriate for the content? Does the voice align with other pieces?

• Do we capture the reader’s attention? Will our readers care? What points are relevant to them?

• Is this new or have we done this in the past?

• Is it relevant to the discussion and does it accomplish the overall goal?

• Does the piece provide value?

• Are there examples to illustrate points? Data? Statistics? Additional media, such as images or video?

Proofreading is the process of reviewing a piece for mistakes, including spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, as well as word inconsistencies, improper formatting, and typos.

You should only move into the proofreading phase once you feel the editing process is complete. If you or someone else perform large changes or additions, any proofreading that you do may be edited out or substantially changed. Then, you’re backtracking and wasting time. It’s also a great idea to put the piece aside for at least 24 hours after editing, to give you a fresh perspective when you proofread.

Proofreading can be simplified by following some general principles and creating your own step-by-step proofreading process that will work for any writing assignment.

A Complete Proofreading Master Guide

Here’s some advice to help you conduct an efficient and thorough proofreading process:

Click here for Downloadable Checklist

First things first

Take a break. If you have an important piece that you need to distribute, put it aside for a day. If you’re under a strict deadline, try setting it aside for an hour. Even a short break helps and gives your eyes a rest.

Print out a hard copy. Yes, print it. Looking at a hard copy is really different from looking at it on a screen. It’s often easier to spot mistakes on paper and you’ll catch things you didn’t catch in previous rounds.

Get your style guide. If your organization has a style guide, now’s the time to grab it. Review it against your content and determine how things should be organized, spelled, and how any grammar-specific items should be used.

• Are any company names referenced, spelled, and styled correctly? (Tip: Pay particular attention to uppercase, lowercase, one vs. two words, etc.)

• Format of phone numbers

• Use of appropriate terms, such as employee, associate or other nomenclature

• Font, colors, bullet styles, etc.

Format and structure

Titles and headings. Thoroughly review all titles, headings, and subheadings. Then, check them again! These items frequently contain errors/typos that are often missed. Check formatting and case. These mistakes can easily be the most glaring and embarrassing. One of my biggest pet peeves is inconsistent headers and footers in PowerPoint presentations. Check them for consistency!

Grammar/Punctuation. Check for errors with apostrophes, commas, unclosed quotes and parentheses, and other types of punctuation marks. Stray or inconsistent punctuation can cause confusion or change the meaning of your words. Look for things like:

• Spelling, including proper spelling for use of word (e.g., log in as a verb, login as a noun/adjective)

• Correct comma usage, Oxford commas, spacing after commas

• Possessives vs. contractions (its vs. it’s; your vs. you’re)

• Plurals (should not contain an apostrophe) Example: There are two desks in the office but that desk’s drawer is broken.

• Capitalization (limit to proper nouns or consistently use title case)

• Who vs. that (never use that when referring to a person)

• That vs. which (use that to define a sentence’s subject, use which for non-defining clauses)

  • The bike that has a broken seat is in the garage. (The bike he’s talking about is distinguished from his other bikes by its broken seat.)

  • The bike, which has a broken seat, is in the garage. (Here, the broken seat is simply a description of the bike in the garage. There’s no implication that the speaker owns more than one bike.)

• Unnecessary use of that

Need help? Check out these resources:

• The Punctuation Guide

• AP Stylebook (subscription required)

• Purdue University Writing Lab

• Western Michigan University Punctuation Guide

Proper word usage. Examine your writing for words that spell check misses or cannot distinguish, such as judgment/judgement, principle/principal, statute/statue, quite/quiet, hear/here, and council/counsel. These sorts of errors are extremely common.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. ~ Mark Twain

Title selection. The title/headline of your piece is often the piece’s first impression (think social media shares, search results, etc.), so it's important to put some time and careful thought into its selection. Here's what to consider:

• Is the title compelling and interesting enough to get people interested?

• Does the title accurately reflect the content? Avoid being overly sensational or deceiving.

• Is the title brief and concise?

Avoid passive voice. It tends to sap energy and power from your prose. It's usually better to say "Sam sent the email” than "the email that was sent by Sam."

Read Grammarly’s post on Passive Voice for an enhanced description.

Italics and underlines. You can use one or the other but never both. Italics are preferred, as underlining may hinder readability. Not to mention, they mean the same thing (Never use the following: This format is incorrect).

Photos and infographics. The question you should ask here is, “Can we use this image?”

When a person creates an original photograph, infographic, or other type of image, they own the rights to that item. When that image is used without the creator's consent, you’re creating copyright infringement. This can lead to a myriad of problems for you and your organization.

HubSpot published an article and developed an infographic to help you determine if you can or can’t share an image in your material.

To Thine Own Self Be True. Are you aware that you consistently make the same sort of typographical error or misuse particular punctuation marks when you write? Devote a step in your proofreading process to specifically seek out and address certain errors that plague your own writing.

Click here for Downloadable Checklist

Hold on a Second, Before You Post…

Thought you were finished? Not just yet. Don’t forget these final items to ensure validity and reader engagement:

• Are there links to other resources, landing pages, or blog articles that might be helpful to the reader (or improve your SEO)?

• Were the links tested?

• Do you need to have legal or communications review?

• Have the stats been fact checked?

• Were attributions properly placed (links, credits, etc.)?

Remember, this is a guide. The process involves your writing and your proofreading process—customize it to suit your individual needs.

If you’ve ever had an editing nightmare, tell us about it in the comments!