How I proofread

The misleading ‘read’ in proofreading

I don’t proofread your document like your readers read your document. That’s reading. And that’s risky.

Working on complex reports written by multiple contributors, shaped by rounds of stakeholder feedback and late-stage revisions, I need to know exactly what to focus on. It’s rarely just about spelling mistakes and accidental typos.

It’s usually the inconsistent capitalisation of a product name across 273 pages. A figure legend attached to the wrong figure. The URL that links to a staff-only login page. Or the number with no footnote and the footnote with no number.

To find the issues other people miss, I need a process.

Purposeful precision

BEAM is my five-stage proofreading process for complex, information-rich documents.

Each pass focuses on a specific layer of the document, so consistency and coherence are created systematically and not left to memory.

Across the reports and complex documents I proofread in 2025, I made an average of 79 tracked changes and comments per 1,000 words. That’s across well-written, carefully produced documents. And that doesn’t include necessary untracked amendments.

Need this level of review for your report?

The 5-stage BEAM process

Here’s what each stage focuses on…

► BEAM 1: The clean-up

I remove technical distractions such as double punctuation, extra spaces at the start of paragraphs, missing full stops at the end of paragraphs, straight quote marks and other issues that don’t need your approval.

This clears the way for the more detailed review.

► BEAM 2: Your document, your rules

If there’s an editorial style guide, I use it to guide the review and work through client-specific requirements. No style guide? I gather the decisions that need making and email them to you after the third pass.

And for specifically formatted templates, I’ll make sure everything is – quite literally – aligned.

► BEAM 3: Consistency and duplication

I work through inconsistencies in terminology, spelling choices, abbreviations, headings, numbering, tables, figure legends, cross-references and footnotes, as well as duplicated content.

This is where a multi-author document becomes one unified piece of work.

Overarching queries that can’t be resolved by the style guide are collated and sent to you in a single batch.

► BEAM 4. Top-to-toe readthrough

Once the targeted checks are complete, I read the document in full. I follow the meaning, check for ambiguity, raise sentence-specific queries and make sure the document is clear for the reader.

► BEAM 5: Final quality check

Once the queries have been clarified and everything’s been reviewed, I repeat key checks from the first three stages.

Any review process can create knock-on effects, so this final pass helps catch anything introduced during the proofreading stage.

This final check allows me to return your document with confidence.

Ready to book your final review?