As a professional proofreader, I look for everything that’s wrong with a piece of text. Sometimes even when not proofreading, I struggle to rise myself above the grammar.
But there are certain things that I really can’t abide. Fortunately for you, my services will get rid of such things for you—as well as countless others. Below is a short list of the ones that drive me nuts:
- Inconsistent spacing between sentences. Sometimes one; sometimes two.
- Faux ellipses. Three full stops/periods (…) instead of the ellipsis symbol (…).
- Hyperlinks that underline a trailing space or punctuation mark as well as the words that form the link. (Note that if an entire sentence is being hyperlinked, the full stop/period at the end should be underlined.)
- Italicised words or phrases that also have the leading or trailing space italicised. It’s not obvious to a lay-reader, but it kills me.
- Inconsistent punctuation at the end of bullets.
- Redundant spaces at the end of paragraphs. Yes, I know they’re not harming anyone, but they are doing untold damage to my sanity.
Above are some of the reasons I’m a proofreader, and arguably no fun to be around.