Paul Brandt

The service I provide is proofreading. This includes proofreading manuscripts, social media/blog posts/online content, business marketing materials, etc.

Please note that proofreading is not editing (plot, paragraphs, sentence structure, etc. are not changed) and should take place after a book has been developmental edited, line edited, and/or copy edited—either one, two, or all three. Don’t worry if you’re not sure, if I believe your document needs more than proofreading, I’ll notify you.

Before I began my journey as a professional proofreading service, I lived in a suburb outside Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Louisville, Kentucky, for schooling. These days I write books, book reviews, manage multiple sites, and many other projects.

I began the journey of becoming a professional proofreader soon after publishing my first book. I had the intention of improving my writing and grammar. Now I notice every one of those crazy mistake I’ve done in my writing over the years. Those pesky grammar rules and typos really bug me!

It’s my hope I can provide a professional proofreading service for—to name a few—authors, writers, and bloggers, so they can receive the best possible support for their publishing needs.

What I provide:

grammatical errors

subject/verb agreement

• ex. Either dogs or cats is (are) my favorite.

pronouns and their antecedents

• ex. Billy totaled its (his) car.

comma splices

• ex. I ran fast to the store, (and) I got the groceries.

run-ons (the above example is technically a run-on sentence called a comma splice)

• ex. I go to that place(,) and I find that they are not there(,) which I then begin to wonder.

sentence fragments

• ex. (I worked) From from dusk till dawn.

misplaced modifiers (this one can be tricky because it depends on the context of a modifier)

• ex. I only ate (only) peas. I did not even touch the corn or carrots and would not eat them.
• Since the content shows that the corn or carrots were not eaten, the modifier “only” should modify peas.

punctuation

hyphenations

• ex. He works a full time (full-time) job.

semicolons

• ex. I went to the store, (;) he went with me too.
• Note: this is an example of a comma splice
• This example could also be fixed by getting rid of the comma, adding a period, and capitalizing the h of “he”.

missing or wrong end of sentence punctuation mark

• How fast can dogs run. (?)

spelling (Don’t get me wrong, spell check can be useful, but it cannot find certain issues.)

homophones

• This is when the word is spelled correctly, but it’s the wrong wrong use.
• ex. Why did you go their (there)?
• ex. The butler gave Miss Marple a written confession, hoping to lesson (lessen) his guilty conscious (conscience).

formatting

check if chunks of text are paragraphed properly

make sure lines are indented consistently

check page numbers