A proofreading checklist before you hit send

Most mistakes are not made by people who cannot spell. They are made by people who read their own text the way they meant to write it. Your eyes fill in the missing word and skip the doubled one, because you already know what the sentence says.

A checklist helps because it gives your reading a job. Instead of reading the text once more and hoping, you look for one kind of problem at a time. Use the full list for an application or a report, and the short version at the end for an everyday email.

1. Get some distance from your text first

• Take a break. Even ten minutes away from the text helps. For something important, sleep on it if you can.
• Change how it looks. Read it on another screen, on your phone, printed, or in a different font. A new look breaks the memory of how the text should read.
• Read it aloud. Speaking slows you down to one word at a time, and you hear the missing word, the repeated one, and the sentence that runs out of breath.

2. Check the words for spelling and usage

• Run a spell check with the right language. Paste the text into the Online Spell Checker or open the document there, and choose the exact variant: English (US) and English (UK) spell many common words differently.
• Look at what a spell check lets through. A real word in the wrong place is spelled correctly: form for from, loose for lose, manger for manager.
• Check the pairs that are easy to confuse: its and it's, your and you're, their, there and they're, then and than, affect and effect.
• Keep one spelling. Use one variant of English throughout, and one form for terms that have several: email or e-mail, online or on-line. More on this in British vs American English: how to keep your spelling consistent.

3. Check the sentences for clarity and grammar

• Every verb agrees with its subject, even when words stand between them: The list of changes is attached, not are.
• Edited sentences are complete. Rewriting half a sentence is how a word goes missing or a phrase appears twice. Read every sentence you changed once more on its own.
• Long sentences are split. If you have to take a breath in the middle when reading aloud, the reader will lose the thread there too.
• Filler is gone. At this point in time is now; in order to is usually to. Picky mode in the spell checker points out wordy phrases like these.

The grammar points a checker looks for are collected, with examples, in Ten common grammar mistakes a grammar checker finds.

4. Verify the facts and details

No checker can tell whether a fact is right. These are the mistakes that cost the most, so check them one by one against the source:

• Names of people and companies, including the name in the greeting. Misspelling the reader's own name is the mistake they notice first.
• Numbers, prices and totals. Do the sums again, and check that a figure in the text matches the same figure in a table or an attachment.
• Dates and times, with the weekday if you give one, and the time zone if the reader is somewhere else.
• Links, phone numbers and addresses. Click every link and compare every number with where it came from.
• Anything you copied from an earlier email or document, which may still carry the old date, name or price.

5. Review the format and layout

• Headings and lists are parallel. If one list item starts with a verb, they all do.
• One font and size for the body text. Text pasted from elsewhere often brings its own.
• Spacing is even: no double spaces, no space before a comma or a full stop, the same gap between paragraphs.
• Capitals follow one rule, in headings and in the terms you capitalize.
• Nothing is left over: no comments, highlights, tracked changes or notes to yourself such as check this or TODO.

6. The final check before you hit send

• The subject line says what the message is about, and is spelled correctly too.
• The recipients are right. Check To, Cc and Bcc, and think twice before Reply all.
• The attachment is attached, and it is the final version, in a format the reader can open.
• The first and last sentences get one more read. They are the ones most people actually read.
• The tone fits. Read it as the recipient would, on a busy day. Would anything sound sharper than you meant?

When a second reader can help with proofreading

For a text that really matters, such as a job application, a contract or something that will be printed, ask another person to read it. They do not know what you meant to write, so they read what is there.

When there is no one to ask, the AI Spell Checker & Grammar Checker comes closest to that fresh look: it reads whole sentences and suggests corrections in context, so it notices the right word in the wrong place and the sentence that does not quite work. Its free use is limited, so save it for the texts where a mistake would hurt.

Quick proofreading checklist for everyday emails

1. Run a spell check in the right variant of English.
2. Check names, numbers, dates and links against the source.
3. Read the first and last sentence once more.
4. Check the recipients, the subject line and the attachment.

Four steps, under a minute, and most of the mistakes that would otherwise follow you around in someone else's inbox are gone.