The importance of proofreading.

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Proofreading is a service that I offer via the Typewrite Proofreading arm of my business. Here I would like to explain why proofreading is such a vitally important service.

The simple fact of the matter is that, in any written copy, the impression to be made to your reader is of the utmost importance. A good impression can make an immediate sell on what you are trying to present, and conversely, a bad impression can turn the reader off for good.

Let's have a look at the following examples:

- If you're a businessperson writing a letter to a client, and you make a fundamental error in your letter, the client may begin to doubt your professionalism in other aspects of your work.

- If you're a teacher, and you make a grammatical error in one of the documents you present to your students, the students may lose faith in your professionalism and your teaching abilities.

- If you're a student writing a thesis or an assignment, your professor or lecturer is your client. To get good marks on the assignment, you need to make a good impression and making sure your grammar and spelling are fundamentally correct will go a long way towards ensuring this.

- If you're writing a letter to a friend, you don't want to make basic mistakes and have your friend wonder how educated you really are.

- If you are a business manager or owner setting up a website, the last thing you need is a typo on your front page.

-If you are a magazine editor, and your magazine is full of basic mistakes, the reader will be put off right from the start.

There are many more applications that would require proofreading, and once you've decided your work needs to be proofread, you have a number of options at your disposal:

- Proofread your own work (disadvantage - it's hard to pick up your own mistakes)

- Get a friend or colleague to proofread your work (disadvantage - your friend might not be as thorough or timeous as you would like them to be, and may be no more qualified than you yourself)

- Hire a proofreading service such as Typewrite Proofreading. (advantages: your work will be done quickly and professionally).

Who can use a proofreader? Many people can. The list includes, but is not limited to:

- Students

- Web designers

- Journalists

- Publishers

- Businessmen

- Writers

- Translators

Proofreading professional

Hi guys,
Proofreading is of exceptional importance in every aspect of a virtual business. Remember, what we are producing is a document, whether we are doing it by transcribing, or by typing, or by researching - and this document has to be 100 per cent correct in every way - including grammar and spelling.

Sometimes, it is hard for a person to spot their own grammar and spelling mistakes, and this is where it is beneficial to enlist the services of a professional proofreader.

In this age of computerised voice recognition software, and other computer generated documents, I believe it is vitally important to pay attention to proofreading. At this stage, software for the most part is not clever enough to differentiate between, say, 'there', 'their' and 'they're'. We are - and that is what sets the human brain ahead of the microchip!

I am promoting this arm of my business:

Working From Home in the Czech Republic by Pearl Harris

Today we have the pleasure of a guest post from the accomplished author, second language English teacher, proofreader and editor, Pearl Harris who has recently written a book "From Africa to Bukova"

Born within sight of the red sand dunes of the Kalahari, PEARL HARRIS lived most of her life in South Africa, until taking the drastic step of emigrating with her husband, Ian, to the Czech Republic (with their Labrador and cat).

Teaching English as a Foreign Language to the Czechs—a new career for the author—has its joys and trials, which Pearl shares with the reader in "From Africa to Bukova".
You will also learn about her early childhood on an isolated South African farm and about her British Settler ancestor who chose to emigrate from England to Africa as a 19-year-old, spending the rest of his life in South Africa.

Pearl’s travel articles have been published in South African magazines, "Diversions" and "Your Family", and in Czech magazines, "Lifestyles" and "Bridge", as well as on the websites, http://www.timetravel-britain.com/ and http://www.transitionsabroad.com/

Pearl taught English at the České Budĕjovice branch of POLYGLOT from 2002 to 2007. At present, she works from home as an English teacher, proofreader and travel writer. The Czech Republic has become her permanent home.

Working from Home in the Czech Republic
by
Pearl Harris

Nearly eight years ago, my husband and I emigrated from East London to Buková, a tiny village in South Bohemia, near the Czech border with Austria.

I started off teaching English (EFL) at a private language school which was situated 30km. from Buková in the city of České Budějovice. Teaching was the last career I ever wanted to follow, but this was the only employment available to someone without the slightest Czech language ability.

English is in great demand in this country, especially since its inclusion in the EU. In former days (the communist era lasted for 40 years) only Czech and Russian were taught at school. Czechs were not allowed to travel and were totally isolated, so now there is great hunger to learn English as an international language.

In South Africa, I worked as a Radiographer and later as a Medical Transcriptionist for Radiologists. The latter work was particularly stressful as I worked under extreme pressure in a very busy X-ray dept. of a private hospital.

I had to type at such a rapid rate, for so many hours on end, that I developed osteo-arthritis in my fingers!

Before leaving S.A., Ian and I did a crash course in TEFL at the Cape Town TEFL Institute, so that, when thrown in at the deep end of teaching here, we had a slight inkling of what it involved. I taught for five years at the private language school, travelling to and from České Budějovice at unearthly hours—in snow, blizzards and pitch darkness in Winter. My students were mainly adults who attended classes either before or after work, hence the awkward teaching hours.

By 2007, deciding that I had had enough of teaching, I resigned from the school, but kept teaching a few private students who came to our home for lessons. This was so much easier! I then wanted to develop my proofreading business, which had been a mere sideline, due to the fact that I was spending most of my time teaching and travelling!

I found a great demand for English proofreading. This is because Czech to English is translated mainly by Czech speakers, there not being anything like enough English native speakers sufficiently fluent in the impossibly difficult Czech language! Therefore, the English translations are anything but perfect –as is to be expected when one is translating into your 2nd or 3rd language!

Today, one still sees hilarious translations on some restaurant Menus and online. Many translators still mistakenly consider themselves good enough not to warrant any proofreading. However, fortunately for me, there are many today who realise they do need proofreading in order to produce quality translations. This has been especially noticeable since the Czech Republic became a member of the EU and recently held the Presidency.

I began by advertising on an Expats website, which chiefly serves the expatriate community in Prague. Many employers advertise on this site for English native speakers. In this way, I slowly built up a regular clientele. The average fee for proofreading is 100Kc per norm page (1800 keystrokes) – which is about R50. For more specialised texts, the fee may be up to 180 Kc (R90) per page.

I often proofread texts for university students and lecturers. Many theses and academic papers today have to be published in English. Further, I do regular proofreading for “Statuss”, which is an upmarket mag. catering to the elite, published in Russian, Czech & English. I also proofread for an agency which publishes monthly business magazines in English.

Now that my time is my own, I have been fortunate in being able to develop my travel writing too. My articles are published on the websites: www.TransitionsAbroad.com and www.TimeTravel-Britain.com as well as in “Bridge” a Prague magazine for High School English students, and in the South African, “Diversions”. So I am fortunate in being able to combine my love of travel with earning something back after our travels.


Ian and I are both keen photographers and usually illustrate my articles with our own photos. Living in Central Europe is such a huge bonus—however, we never have enough time or money to travel as much as we would really like to!

In December, 2008, I finally went the self-publishing route and published my travel memoir, “From Africa to Buková”, through createspace.com (See details below.) The book deals with individual funny, not-so-funny & frustrating incidents during our early years as immigrants in the Czech Republic. I would ideally like to rewrite and polish it, but that will have to wait until (if ever) I get a regular publisher interested!

I send my chilled greetings to all the VAs in sunny South Africa!

Pearl Harris.


Book From Africa to Buková

may be ordered online from:
https://www.createspace.com/3359697
OR
http://www.amazon.com/ Books
OR
by contacting Pearl Harris at
ian.harris@quick.cz

Writing, proofreading and editing blog posts as a new service

I read a few blog posts last night and was quite shocked by the poor quality of them, particularly one as I happen to know the author of it is quite capable of writing in grammatically correct, properly spelled English. I have a theory about it. I think that people who are the best of professionals in their every day lives tend to get rushed and overexcited when writing blog posts - I know from experience it can be something you hurry to fit in at the end of a busy day - and I do think it's a shame that these errors occur, as a poorly written blog post can tarnish the author's otherwise brilliantly professional image.

In the rush, after one has worked an 18 hour day, "Their computers" become "there computers" or worse (to me) "they're computers" ... or "Don't get worn out by long hours" becomes "dont get warn out by long hours" ....

Full stops become commas in the rush to get the text down ... "I transcribed 14 hours of audio today. The client was really pleased, and I have more for tomorrow. He needs it back by 6pm." - this looks so much worse written as "I transcribed 14 hours of audio today, the client was really pleased, and I have more for tomorrow, he needs it back by 6pm."

Another pet hate of mine is incorrect capitalisation. I did a grammar and spelling quiz on Facebook, and my result was "English Professor Material" - which amazed me, because one of the questions actually had no correct answer! It read:

They took ________ dog for a walk and afterwards _________ going home. Which are the correct words to fill in here?

a) Their, they're
b) there, their
c) They're, there
d) there, they're

I picked a) and hoped for the best as it was, I supposed, the most correct, but it too is not correct. If you slot the words in, there is a horribly incorrect capitalisation in the sentence.

If you are unsure whether you can get your spelling and grammar correct on your blog, outsource this function. I will from now on be offering writing, proofreading and editing of blog posts and entries as a service to my clients.

Proofreading Services

Writing and proofreading services now offered:

South Africa, Republic of (Press Release) March 26, 2009 -- The established transcription and typing entity Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services (www.typewritetranscription.co.za) has added proofreading to the list of services it offers. Gaynor Paynter, owner, says "Proofreading has always been close to my heart and what with the current recession, I feel that many businesses who have downsized will benefit from this service, because they will have had laid off staff, and flustered secretaries and other staff members, upon whom extra duties will fall, will simply not have the time to write and proofread documents as diligently as they did before."

Although the ocmpany is based in South Africa, this too is of benefit to international clients. Because of the South African time zone, work can be done overnight and completed by the following morning. In addition to this the rates will be cheaper. The outsourcing of this service will save businesses time and money. Gaynor Paynter can be emailed at gpaynter@telkomsa.net for further information.

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200903/1238057223.html

CV Writing Service

The established typing entity Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services CC, www.typewritetranscription.co.za, is offering CV writing services to recruitment agencies (a retainer agreement will be available) and to individuals needing their CVs done in a professional manner during the recession.

Gaynor Paynter, owner, says "Prior to starting Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services CC, I worked for five years in a recruitment company as a CV writer. During that time I gained masses of experience in both the writing and proofreading of CVs, as well as preparing correspondence for clients, etc. During the recession companies will be downsizing and it makes sense to outsource CV writing."

Gaynor Paynter is contactable at gpaynter@telkomsa.net