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I have also used this trick and it works very well!
Flora
At 01:07 PM 4/17/97 GMT+7, Michael Hassett wrote:
>A trick my dad taught me when I was 12 and he was working as a
>proofreader for a publishing company--
>
>If you really want to catch surface problems (punctuation, spelling,
>citation style, etc.) read the document backwards. Start with the
>last sentence, then move to the next to the last sentence, then to
>the third-to-last sentence, and so on. (For spelling, sometimes it is
>useful to read one word at a time, starting with the last word of the
>document.) This circumvents the mind's
>ability to automatically correct errors as you read in the normal
>manner. It also serves to make your own writing foreign, thus
>getting at the "fresh set of eyes" concept.
>
>I'm currently doing this on some material and it works quite well.
>However, if you think proofreading the normal way is slow and
>tedious, you'll find this even worse. But it seems worth the pain.
>
>
>Michael Hassett
>Assistant Professor
>English
>Boise State University
>mhasset -at- quartz -dot- idbsu -dot- edu
>(208)385-4211
>http://www.idbsu.edu/english/mhassett/hassett.htm
>
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