When almost everything about your manuscript is in place, you may elect to have a simple proofread performed as a final, necessary step prior to putting your work before the public eye.

What does a proofread accomplish? Your CambridgeEditors Proofreader will meticulously detect and correct grammatical errors. All usage and citation errors are corrected, including errors of capitalization. Sentences, if incorrectly punctuated, are made right. Your Proofreader’s attention to capitalization extends to acronyms, country names, and terms of honorary address, and applies a consistent usage across all sections of your manuscript. The Proofreader neither adds nor subtracts text. Attention is to grammar only, which includes fixing typos and deleting whole sections of text that are known to sneak twice into long manuscripts. Corrections extend to front matter and appendices, as well as to in-text and reference-section citations. Syntactical errors are also detected and corrected.

What does a Proofread not accomplish? For what type of texts is it best? In contrast to the Line-by-Line and Copy Edit Services, our Proofread Service leaves the text very close to what is originally submitted. In other words, the Proofread does not include the editing of style or of organization; its main purpose is to ensure compliance with the rules of standard written English. Consequently, international scholars and English as a Second Language (ESL) writers often choose the Proofread Service. It is an excellent choice for those submitting or publishing work that has been translated into English, but that does not require structural or stylistic changes. Your Proofreader will use Microsoft Word’s Track Changes to input edits and to insert comments.

For more intensive editing, we recommend our Line-by-Line Edit Service, which addresses authors’ work at the level of structural and stylistic detail.