You may be one of those people who think that proofreading is just an extra step that can be skipped. You may think proofreading is just costly and time-consuming, or you believe your business can survive without it. Here, we write this post to prove you wrong. In a world that expects from your business a lot, you can lose much more than just money if high quality isn’t at the top of your priorities.
Without proofreading your business content, you will lose your existing and potential customers and surely end up with a tarnished image and reputation, which will reflect poorly on your sales. Yes, proofreading has that impact.
Let’s face the fact that errors may creep into your content regardless of how much you invest in highly professional writing and translation services. And one typo or grammatical mistake can change your message, give the wrong information about your services and/or products, and consequently make your business look unprofessional and send a strong signal to your customer that you don’t care.
While your product or service can be of great value, mistakes will undoubtedly push your potential international customer away. So, why is proofreading important? A question that might pop into your mind! This blog will dig into proofreading, covering its definition and importance. And most importantly, we will look at the difference between proofreading and editing and the need for professional translation and localization companies’ services.
What is Proofreading?
Before you get an answer on “Why is proofreading important?”, let’s understand what proofreading exactly is. Proofreading is the process of revising a written work or material, regardless of its type, to highlight inaccuracies or inconsistencies in formatting, writing style, and structure, including grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It’s the last step in the editing process.
However, there is a big difference between proofreading and editing; we will discuss this later in our post. Whether this content is for a creative purpose or technical industry, proofreading is about producing error-free and precise translations.
That’s why proofreading services should be an integral part of the writing process and shouldn’t be ignored or swapped with online spell checkers. The latter may be able to correct obvious typos, but it won’t ever catch the wrong-placed words or improper writing style.
The Evolution of Proofreading
Have you ever wondered how people corrected text mistakes in times past? As mentioned before, writing errors will always exist at all times and consistently need to be fixed. For example, in the Abbey Bible from the 13th century, scribes had to cross out complete sections and correct them on the next page. And other scribes in medieval times were scabbing off the wrong text with a knife to add the corrected text with a different color or in the margins.
And then, as the publishing press thrived in the 1600s and the margin of errors increased, there was a pressing need to have someone specializing in proofreading. From here, the specialist profession of “proofreader” has come to life.
Do you know that there is a big story behind “proof” in “proofreader”? Proofs, also known as galley proofs, are the test version of a piece of writing to be reviewed by a proofreader before publication.
As you can see in the above picture, the proofs were plates on which typesetters arranged the tiles used to publish a document or book. In our modern digital days, everything is almost computerized – though in some cases, proofreaders work directly on physical copies.
The Difference Between Proofreading and Editing
Proofreading and editing are often confused with one another, but they are different. When a proofreader works on your document or any content, he searches for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and formatting and punctuation issues.
Their responsibilities only involve revising and correcting any existing mistakes, not rewriting whole passages. On the flip side, editing is the process of revising a written text to spot and fix any issues related to the included information, readability, sentence structures, flow, and grammatical and spelling mistakes. It may involve rewriting, arranging, adding, or deleting whole sections to improve the clarity and quality of the written product.
Why is Proofreading Important for Your Business?
Proofreading gives no room for mistakes to make it through to your content, regardless of its type and purpose. No matter your industry and audience, we believe that a mistake can lead to a lost opportunity (in the best-case scenario) or to risking lives in the life science and health industry in the worst case. Indeed, you haven’t invested that much time and money in your business to push away your customer or risk patients’ lives.
That’s why proofreading should be your highest priority, especially if people’s health and lots of money are at stake (let’s be realistic.) “Why is proofreading important?” Let’s share a detailed answer to your question. Here are the reasons:
- Your Business Image & Credibility: A misspelled word or grammatical error in your business documents can hurt your reputation more than you expect. Your customers judge faster than you think, and they will navigate through your content to decide if you’re trustworthy or not, especially if money is involved.
In addition, some errors can lead to more colossal consequences. For example, mistakes in legal contracts/agreements and product descriptions can jeopardize partnerships and users’ trust and probably lead to legal disputes.
- Clear Communications: Do you know that a simple punctuation mark, such as a comma, can entirely change the meaning of a sentence? For example, “Let’s eat, Smith!” and “Let’s eat Smith.” Can you imagine the taste of Smith? And here comes the role of proofreading to catch any errors and prevent miscommunications and confusion.
Do you know that a letter cost Yellow Pages to pay $18 million in 1988? Instead of “exotic holidays,” Yellow pages added an ad for a travel agency that includes “erotic holidays” in their telephone directory. Imagine how much the travel agency is affected by such a small mistake!
- Trust: In order to earn your customer’s trust, you shouldn’t only provide value but also error-free communications. Proofreading is a must to polish and add the final touches to your products or services; it gives your audience what they are looking for: quality and accuracy, which will lead to trust and, consequently, a loyal customer.
According to a study by Website Planet comparing the visitors of two identical sites, one of which is error-free and the other full of errors, 85% of visitors left the latter more than the other once they checked a single page.
- Costs: A mistake can cost businesses a lot to be fixed. Away from the cost implications, a simple error can cost you your time, delaying your product launch, for instance.
Imagine the impact of printing a business document with fatal text errors on a large scale!
Why Do You Need Professional Proofreading?
Making mistakes is human and inevitable; spotting and fixing these mistakes require attention to detail and remarkable capabilities. And only some people can review their own work and spot their writing errors since they already expect what is coming next and what to see and read.
Consequently, a fresh, professional pair of eyes is far more likely to catch typos and issues than the writer himself. It’s important not to wait until you find unforgivable mistakes in your content to get professional help and integrate proofreading into your process; be prepared as much as possible from the beginning through the right approaches.
Any reputable translation and localization company should treat editing and proofreading as integral components of their translation process. So, if the global market is your goal, picking the ideal translation company (that embraces a multilayered translation process) goes a long way to succeeding and standing out among your competition.
And at AsiaLocalize, nothing ever goes under our radar. We are a leading Asian ISO-certified translation and localization services company willing to assist you in your global journey, providing you with the most reliable translations in all your desired languages.
We employ a three-tiered translation process that prevents errors from slipping through the cracks. Besides our vast network of in-country expert translators, we support your expansions with professional proofreaders and editors who never give any chance for mistakes to exist. Eventually, as you can see, proofreading isn’t an option if you have an eye on global success.
And if you are worried about its cost, compare it to the cost implications of having a mistake fixed in a single business document. From where we stand, we can assure you that proofreading will pay off more than it costs, allowing you to thrive internationally.
