Whilst proofreading the other day, I realised that I am actually checking a lot of different aspects of the document at the same time. The list below was put together to give an idea of what sort of errors and issues to look for in the proofreading process.

Spelling and grammar

1. Capitalisation of proper nouns
2. Capitalisation at the start of sentences
3. Tense
4. Use of active/passive voice
5. Homonyms and homophones (e.g. ‘allowed’/’aloud’)
6. All brackets and parenthetic commas are closed
7. Compound nouns are hyphenated where necessary
8. No hyphens after adjectives ending in –ly
9. Countable vs. uncountable nouns
10. Article types (‘a’/’an’ vs. ‘the’)
11. Redundant or missing articles
12. Missing question marks for rhetorical questions
13. Over-use or inappropriate use of exclamation marks
14. Quantifiers (e.g. ‘much’ vs. ‘many’)
15. Superlatives and comparatives (e.g. ‘worse’ rather than ‘badder’)
16. Correct prepositions (e.g. ‘danced at a party’ rather than ‘danced on a party’)
17. Commas between adjectives of the same category
18. Order of adjectives
19. Subject-verb agreement
20. No sentences ending in prepositions (formal writing)
21. Correct plural forms
22. Pronoun use (e.g. ‘I’ vs. ‘me’)
23. No missing diacritics (like accents and umlauts)
24. Singular vs. collective nouns (e.g. for company names - depends on dialect)
25. Correct use of apostrophes
26. Comma placement
27. Semicolons vs. colons vs. commas
28. Modal forms (e.g. ‘could’ vs. ‘can’)
29. Full stops after certain abbreviations (e.g. ‘e.g.’!)
30. Correct verb conjugation
31. No capitalisation of compass points unless part of a proper noun
32. Transposed letters
33. Missing or extra letters
34. All sentences are complete sentences (perhaps excludes flash fiction!)
35. Accidentally omitted words
36. Irregular verbs
37. Positioning of negative adverbs
38. Double negatives
39. Capitalisation of headings
40. Conditional sentences
41. Phrasal verbs
42. Confusion between adverbs and adjectives
43. Auxiliary verbs
44. Commas after introductory phrases or clauses in sentences
45. Gender-neutral pronouns for objects in English (although some nautical texts refer to a ship as ‘she’)

Style

46. Point of view (first or second person)
47. Appropriate vocabulary for the intended audience
48. Organisation of document (e.g. does it need an introduction?)
49. Consistent dialect (e.g. US English vs. British English)
50. Explanation of uncommon abbreviations on first use
51. Speech mark and apostrophe styles
52. Consistent approach to writing out numbers in full (e.g. writing out all one-word numbers)
53. Unnecessary repetition
54. Sentence length and complexity
55. Ambiguous vocabulary (e.g. ‘biannual’ can mean twice a year and every other year)
56. Flow of paragraphs and ideas
57. Correct use of cultural idioms and proverbs – particularly difficult for non-native speakers
58. Appropriate word count
59. Avoid contractions and colloquialisms in formal writing (e.g. write ‘do not’ instead of ‘don’t’)
60. Consistent writing style
61. Varied sentence structure
62. Clarity of central argument, theme or message
63. Appropriate document title
64. Comprehensible use of deixis (e.g. ‘it’ and ‘that’)
65. Tautologies
66. Responds to original instructions/brief/question
67. Unclear separation of items in lists
68. Consistent approach to ‘while’/‘whilst’, ‘among’/‘amongst’ and ‘amid’/‘amidst’

Formatting

69. Italics for non-English terms (e.g. in medias res)
70. Font size
71. Font type
72. Font colour
73. Page numbering
74. Figure and table numbering
75. Formatting of quotations
76. Paragraph spacing
77. Spacing after punctuation
78. Accidental duplicate spaces
79. Captions for images
80. Consistent formatting of headings and sub-headings
81. Text alignment
82. Headers and footers
83. List numbering
84. Bullet point formatting
85. Margins
86. Figures and tables running over pages
87. Correct in-text page and figure referencing (e.g. ‘see Page 3’)
88. Indentation
89. Consistent image positioning
90. Any formatting conventions for the document type (e.g. address blocks on letters)
91. Tabs and tab stops
92. Subscript and superscript text

Referencing and validity

93. Reference style
94. Reference validity
95. All hyperlinks or internal document links valid
96. Plagiarism
97. Originality
98. Accurate facts and data
99. All figures and tables referenced in the text
100. Author name (including within your word processor’s settings)
101. Contact details