Proofreading Marks And Symbols: The Language You Should Understand

review

4.8

star star star star star
based on 500+ reviews

August 27, 2021

August 27, 2021

All students constantly deal with various writing assignments. Without a doubt, they are necessary to improve your knowledge and develop skills, but sometimes it is impossible to endure this stress. That’s why modern writing services are so popular. And it goes not about writing an essay or a term paper from scratch only. Many students order proofreading services to ensure their documents meet all academic requirements.

It means that you send your draft, and the experienced editor reads it with a keen eye. One will find out mistakes and typos. The purpose of proofreading is to polish your paper to get rid of all errors. Actually, it is the last stage before delivering the document to the professor. 

Once you received the paper from the author, you may mention some proofreading marks and proofreading symbols. Don’t be too surprised since they have a particular meaning, and knowing it, you can make your paper better. Let us provide you with the basic information. 

What Are Proofreading Symbols Used For?

Proofreading editing marks are used by specialists who read your text and want to write down some notes about future amends. For example, when you’re reading the book, you highlight some quotes. But what if you want to distinguish them? You’ll use different ways to mark the quote about the main character, about the antagonist, about nature, and so on. The same thing works for proofreading marks definition. They are used to highlight different errors:

Along with basic proofreading marks, there are also symbols to highlight layout and formatting issues.

Proofreaders usually deal with a hard-copy document since it is easier to read and edit. They leave their notes on the sides of the margins, depending on the part of the sentence they want to change. The proofreader will also include a corresponding mark to show that the line has some issues. 

If you’ve received a document with these symbols, it may be pretty confusing. Fortunately, you can use the ‘Track Changes’ function in Microsoft word to see edits. Of course, you can just accept them and deliver the paper in order to impress the professor and get an A-grade. However, if you want to learn from mistakes, you definitely need to understand what are proofreading marks and how you can read them to analyze your weak points. 

Free Features

icon_check

Free title

icon_check

Free formatting

icon_check

Free revisions

icon_check

Free bibliography & reference pages

What Are Proofreading Marks? How Do They Look Like?

There are several types of proofreading marks, depending on their meaning:

Basic Proofreading Marks

Below you can find a proofreading marks chart. Explore it attentively to remember the most popular symbols you may meet in your paper. It is absolutely normal that your document contains some amends. There are almost no students who can come up with flawless paper from scratch. And it is not about your smartness or literacy. Writing a paper, we don’t mention a lot of details. And the fresh view from the real professional will help you define the main issues, analyze them, and get rid of them. 

Symbol Meaning
Delete
Close up (delete space)
, Move left\right
Insert period
Insert hyphen
Insert comma
Set in capitals
Set in roman type
Verb tense issue
Awkward construction
Wrong word

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 4 / 5. Vote count: 5

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.