1. Basic spelling and language:

The first step of any proofreading project is all about catching language, grammar, and spelling mistakes which even a simple grammar check online is able to accomplish. Thus, as a proofreader, your job would be to look for incorrectly placed phrases, wrong punctuations, incorrectly used homophones, erroneous synonyms, and misspelled words that a grammar check might have missed.

2. Proper nouns and tenses:

Writing mistakes involving subject verb agreement, pronoun errors, and proper noun placement are common in proofreading projects, therefore, proofreaders must double-check documents for their adherence to capitalization rules, consistent verb usage and proper verb tense harmony. Incorrectly spelled proper nouns and messed up tenses are common writing errors that keen proofreading can eliminate.

3. Idioms and abbreviations:

One of the main grammatical issues that keeps repeating in proofreading projects but is quite tricky to catch is wrongly used abbreviations, figures of speech, idioms, metaphors, or similes. To look for these mistakes, proofreaders should focus on apostrophe errors and read aloud phrases that look okay but sound a little off. If you’re unsure of a particular saying or phrase, it is better to look it up online from multiple sources.

4. Sentence structure and flow:

Checking and fixing sentence structure and flow is probably the most critical part of addressing grammatical issues in a proofreading project. Divide the write up into fragments and read each fragment carefully to note the lengths of sentences, the sentence pattern, and use of punctuations. Keep the sentences short and clean, fragment complicated sentences, and read them aloud slowly to check if they are coherent in structure.

Certain grammatical issues jump right at you while proofreading a project and certain mistakes are more elusive and harder to spot. We hope the list illustrated above can help you to look out for the tell-tale signs of grammar mistakes that need to be fixed before the final draft. 

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