quote:
Originally posted by SteveJ
A friend of mine used to make a living by acting as a proof reader for newspapers and publishing houses. You'd think that if you can read then that's all that's needed but you need to be able to read accurately and quickly. He could find a single mistake in an A4 page of text in about 15 seconds so it's definitely a skill. He also spent about 8 hours a day doing it in order to make enough to live on. He died some while ago so I'm afraid I can't ask him how to get started but typing "proof reading services" into a Google search may be a start.
You also have to be extraordinarily proficient in spelling and grammar to do the job well. Having benefitted from the services of proof readers on a number of occasions I am enormously impessed by their expertise - except for one who kept insisting on
Marx's as the correct spelling of the possessive form of the proper noun whereas my classical education taught me it was
Marx' (treating the "x" as a phonetically an "s"). Finally the publisher accepted my interpretation of the correct - well anyway acceptable - English usage.
