Why spellcheck will never be as good as a proofreader

When it comes to independent publishing, there will always be certain costs involved. We can’t get away from that, but there are plenty of ways of making sure you keep those costs to a minimum.

One thing you might be tempted to do to reduce your self-publishing costs is to make do with your computer spellcheck instead of using a proofreader to give your work a proper going over. On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

After all, that’s sort of what the spellcheck is there for, right? It makes sure you’ve spelt everything correctly and flags up major grammar clangers. And anyway, with any luck, as a writer you’ll also have a pretty good grasp of grammar and so your work should be pretty solid to begin with.

All this is true (hopefully), but it also serves to highlight exactly why it’s worth using a proofreader before you self-publish your work. As a writer, you’ll probably be good a spotting the bigger errors, and many of the smaller ones. However, there will always be minor issues that you just don’t spot. This is entirely understandable; when you’ve spent so long with a piece of work, you can veer between questioning absolutely everything about it and missing things that are hiding in plain sight.

This is where your proofreader comes in. They can offer a view from one step removed, making sure all of those smaller issues have been dealt with and picking things up that your spellcheck won’t notice – such as bits of grammar that aren’t necessarily wrong, but aren’t really doing what they should be doing, or words that are spelt correctly but have been accidentally used in the wrong context (see there/their and you/you’re for just a couple of common mistakes – sometimes you don’t even make them yourself; autocorrect can do it for you and they can be all too easy to miss).

Plus, even though the role of the proofreader is generally to check the text for flow and accuracy of grammar rather than editing the story, they can also spot major flaws in the way a computer never could. Even if you have hired your proofreader solely to check your grammar, no professional worth their salt will let huge disasters in the plot slip through uncommented on – after all, the end result of your work will reflect on them as well as you.

So it’s definitely worth getting yourself a proofreader, even if to begin with, it’s just a willing friend or family member. It’s definitely worth making the time and effort – as great as computers are, there are some mistakes the spellcheck tool will never be able to fix.