The dying art of proofreading

[radegund]

oddcellist commented on the decline in proofreading standards - a matter on which I have many thoughts, seeing as how proofreading is part of how I earn my living.

Short version: Proofreading is a pretty specific skill. Most people don't have it - and/or haven't put in the effort to develop it - but because of the explosion in access to desktop publishing equipment and the Web, vastly more people are now releasing documents to the public than ever before. Many of them don't consider proofreading necessary or important. Those of us who do can get very worked up about this, but really, on the scale of human suffering, it doesn't really feature.

(This, at any rate, is how I reconcile it to myself when the blood pressure starts to rise - and after all, if everybody could copyedit and proofread flawlessly, I'd be out of a job...)

Long version: I saw a fascinating BBC documentary a few years ago. I think it was a series on the senses; the episode I saw was about vision. The process whereby we interpret visual signals is much more selective than one might think. In one particularly striking experiment, subjects were shown (one by one) into a room where a man standing behind an information desk greeted them, then bent down to get some paperwork, handed them a folder and asked them to proceed to the next room.

Something like 70% of the subjects did not notice that when the man behind the desk bent down to get the folder, a different man stood up and handed it to them. The two men were of similar build and skin colour, but their hair was different and they wore different-coloured shirts. Of the few who did notice the switch, most didn't comment - some, at least, evidently assuming that they had imagined it.

I can't remember whether the difference between the two groups was posited as innate or learned, but either way, good proofreaders need to be in that 30%. (We're an elite, goddamnit! A misunderstood, underpaid elite!)