I don't know about you, but I don't like voting in polls or taking surveys or assessments when I'm not given the opportunity to give some sort of a clarification or explanation of my answer, especially when my options are very limited. I feel stifled and frustrated, since I feel that my comments would be just as valid or noteworthy as my answer was.... or rather, what it would have been.

What do you think?

Feel free to move, change, delete, or splice this as you may feel necessary, DH!

On to the main point of this post!  I am the new proofreader for RX, as you may or may not have heard.  I won't claim that I am perfect; I'm sure there are many times that I will fail epically... but, hopefully, those will be few and far between ^_^

As an imperfect being, I do not expect any other potential proofreaders to be perfect, either. HOWEVER, I do expect some degree of proficieny... and I'm willing to share a few tips that will hopefully help you to proofread better, whether it is for a translation of a manhwa, an essay that you write for school, a report that you plan to send along to your boss... I think you get the picture ^_~

1. Don't assume that proofreading is something that comes naturally with fluency in a language.
Unfortunately, being able to write or speak without making many mistakes is not the same as being able to notice mistakes that have already been made.  Your brain is too smart for its own good, in this way... if you aren't careful, you will read what you expect to see instead of what is actually on the page/screen in front of you.  Some of the later tips will be about counter-acting this.

2. Understand that Microsoft Word (or whatever other word-proccessing program you use) will not do all of your work for you.
I often find myself ignoring those green squigly lines... I think you know the ones I'm talking about >.< so annoying, sometimes.... They are good for helping you find places that you should double-check, but you cannot edit entirely based upon that advice.  Remember to keep looking for things that the computer missed, and know that it isn't always correct about those things that it finds.

3. Read through it multiple times, and in different ways.
More read-throughs are more chances to pick up mistakes! Also, different methods of reading can have different uses. A fast read-through of a script is a fine thing to do, and I find a lot of mistakes that way. However, you should try reading in other ways as well, since different reading styles can be best at finding and fixing different types of errors.
For instance, if you force yourself to read very slowly it can be easier to notice spelling mistakes.  I find this is also very good for finding places where the wrong form of a word is used.
Reading deliberately and out loud helps you to notice clumsy or awkward phrasing.  Sometimes, as I said earlier, your eyes will tell you that something looks alright when it really is not. When you read out loud, you tend to notice more often if something seems "odd."
It's also a good idea to read the script beside the raw at least once.  This helps you to better understand what the characters are trying to say, and the tone with which they say it.  This is also important for making sure that no text or sound effects were accidentally omited by the translator.

4. The highlighter is your friend.
I don't always want to interrupt my rhythm by fixing something. If you aren't sure how to treat a problem area when you first see it, highlight it and move on!  You might find some inspiration after thinking it over for a while, or after reading it a second or third time.  If you are absolutely stuck and simply have no idea of what to do, then...

5. Ask for help!
You could either find some friends or family to bounce ideas off of, or you ask one of the translators to elaborate so that you can get a better idea of what was originally meant. You could even ask me! I don't bite, at least... not too hard ^_~


I hope this helped, at least somewhat. Good luck, and good night!


Some side notes:
Some characters have very specific speech patterns. It can have a REALLY nice affect when you work to match their tone with specific word choices... consider Kyesu and Byung Shim from Ya!Oee. Kyesu is pretty formal and proper, while Byung Shim is... well... Byung Shim. >.<  You could imagine him screaming out things like "Hey old lady, what d'ya think you're talking about?!?" If such colloquial and rude speech ever came out of Kyesu's mouth, I'd think it was a sign of the appocolypse T.T
Also, while I wouldn't recomend doing the entire thing this way... sometimes I'll do a quick once-over from my phone, highlighting all the errors I find. It's a nice way to get a head start on the project if you can't get to a comp, and sometimes I find that it's easier to focus on a small screen like that. NOT saying you should do the entire project on your phone, tho >.<

Hello everyone! *waves at all the empty seats of the auditorium*
Well, looking at the last few posts... it almost seems as if this forum has become my own little world ^^;
So... if that's the case, I thought... why not give myself a proper introduction to it?!?
I'm 20 years old, and I live on the west coast of the east coast of the U.S. of A! (Can anyone figure that one out?) I go to college there, and I'm about to transfer out of my 2 year community college (which I'll have been in for 3 years by the end of this semester) to go to a major university. I love to read. Love it. Put a book in front of it, and my eyes will just eat it right up! Unless it's a really boring nonfiction book... those make me fall asleep >.<

How did I decide to start proofreading? Actually... in the beginning of January, I had my wisdom teeth out, and I decided that I needed something to do while lying in bed all day recovering. XD
What better thing to do than volunteer to be a proofreader,  right? XD
I think this is a good indication of my level of insanity, lol.  Anywho, in the beginning of January I signed on to work with a (different) scanlation group that I found on the forums of, I believe, Mangafox. The leader has some nice spunk ^_~
They are pretty small, so there isn't a whole lot of work (unless you're a QCer), so I mostly just hung out and spent my time chatting.
It was around then when I remembered how much I missed SID T.T
So... I came to your forums to bug ya and see what was up, lol. I found ch. 32, and its plea for proofreaders. Well, I already signed up as a proofreader somewhere else, so I thought... why not?