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Tips for correcting proofs?

In our new “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

Some tips on correcting proofs would be helpful. Given the number and granularity of errors that can journals sometimes introduce during the production stage, especially to punctuation and references, they really seem to require a fine-toothed comb. I find this so exhausting that I need to break up the work into multiple sessions over a few days, and even then it takes a lot of time for me just to proofread a single article to my satisfaction. I’d be interested to hear others’ typical process here, and how they make it as efficient and painless as possible.

Do any readers have helpful tips to share?

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9 responses to “Tips for correcting proofs?”

  1. Anonymous

    Have two screens if you can. Be extremely careful with the references. Have your original draft on one hand, and the proofs. Remember that it is possible that at some stage, someone who is paid to do the proofs for you may run your paper through AI, and introduce hallucinations. This can also appear if you write in APA style, and the initials of authors are then butchered.

    Reply
  2. Mike Titelbaum

    Yeah, just to amplify anonymous’s point above, at the proofing stage you shouldn’t be re-editing your article and looking for mistakes. You should just lay what you sent next to what they sent you back, and make sure it’s a character-for-character match. Still a pain, but maybe not quite as bad?

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    This may have to do with the “to your satisfaction” part, but for me I just…..lower my standards with these. I try to catch any obvious failings but I acknowledge that i’m just really bad at noticing typos and suchlike and I’m unlikely to ever see them. And frankly I don’t think they cause much in the way of confusion so I’m sort of inclined to be chill about them. On the other hand I once failed to notice that a journal had spelled my name wrong so I might be an abheration here.

    Reply
  4. Tired Grad

    Not the OP, but curious: is there any reason why something like Word’s “Review->Compare” mode won’t work for doing the fine-toothed checking (granting that some fiddling might be needed if the proofs are PDFs)?

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      not OP. but sometimes the proofs are done online, but I never checked whether it can be downloaded. Just saying that the proofs are not really exciting, and when they come to me, it’s really a sense of resignation: I’m really done with this paper, don’t make me do more tedious work.

      Reply
    2. Anonymous

      Converting proofs (as PDFs) to Word to check against a Word document risks introducing errors itself or formatting issues. Unfortunately (?), this stage requires human judgment.

      Reply
  5. Anonymous

    Some tips:

    1. Split the proofreading into different sessions by kind of checking, not by how long it takes you. Do one session where you check for formatting and another where you check for punctuation and spelling. Do another where you check for consistency throughout the document (running heads, tables of contents, sequences of numbered lists, etc.).

    2. Proofread the article starting from the end to the front. Read sentence by sentence that way, since you are not revising for larger units of meaning, you are looking for typesetting errors.

    3. Prioritize your proofreading based on what kinds of errors are most important to catch. This may depend on your paper. If you have a paper with a lot of formalizations, you want to ensure those are correct, so you might need two passes on them, separated by some time.

    4. Accept that every paper will have an error that you catch when it’s in print.

    Reply
  6. sahpa

    Start getting AI to proof it as well — not make edits, but flag potential issues. When you review the proof and the AI, edit your initial instructions to a v02 that corrects where the AI was wrong — and use examples from its actual errors in the past, plus what it should have done instead in that instance. Continue to revise the AI instructions. Over time it will do more and more of the job for you as your instructions get better.

    If you don’t know how to write the first draft: ask AI. I’m not even kidding.

    This shifts your effort over time to sooner rather than later, but will result in proofing being increasingly automated. It also introduces a fun ‘adversarial thinking’ element because instead of tedious reading, you are trying to ‘catch out’ the AI. Since most philosophers find adversarial thinking fun, this may help with motivation.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      The time you spend doing this is better spent using your own, human judgment and not AI.

      Reply

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