Real Life Situation: Using Proofreading Marks to Land the Job

Real Life Situation: Using Proofreading Marks to Land the Job

Title of article to be proofed: ___________________________________ Date ______

Group Members Names:

Name ________________________

Name ________________________

Name ________________________

Name ________________________

Situation You are being considered for a job with Proofreaders, Inc., a proofreading company that makes corrections on articles that will be published in a nationally syndicated newsletter. Proofreaders, Inc. screens its prospective employees by putting them in groups and giving them some real life proofreading tasks.  You will use the proofreading marks to show a typist where corrections need to be made.  A table of proofreading marks is included for your convenience.

Directions Proofreaders, Inc. does not ask its applicants to recopy the texts they correct.  Instead they are asked to use the proofreading marks and to make a hand written log of the errors they find and to include their suggestions for corrections. The table on the next page is used to record or log the errors, the correction, and also show the symbol used. Your corrections are to be made right on the handout.  (Isn’t that nice?) Each time your group completes two paragraphs they are handed in (that’s what you do with a handout, right?) and two new paragraphs can be started Depending on the amount of time we have, you will have four or eight paragraphs to proofread and edit. Then, once the first set of two paragraphs is completed, groups are given the answer sheet and asked to reconcile any differences between your proofreading and final answer sheet. To compute your score for each paragraph, divide your total by their total and multiply by 100.  To compute your final average, total your scores and divide by the number of paragraphs you completed. Good Luck!