Proofreading

For a text to reach the receiver correctly, it has to be well written and, for this, many aspects have to be taken into account. Speaking is not the same as writing. A well or badly written text can open or close doors in the world of work, academia and even the personal world.

At M&L we review your texts from all these points of view:

Spelling

We check texts to ensure that they comply with the set of rules governing the writing of the language being used. Examples of cases that need to be checked carefully:

• C/ S / Z
• H (initial and interleaved)
• V / B
• M / N
• R y/RR
• Y/I/E
• accentuation

Grammar

We reviewed the documents from a structural point of view and from the point of view of the relationships between the different grammatical categories: nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns and determiners.

We take into account cases such as the following:

• Nouns vs. verbs: Avoid using nouns (with their possessives and pronouns which make the text more loaded) when the genuine construction of the language (as is the case in Spanish) is with verbs.
• Use of the infinitive: We will never use an infinitive as the main verb of a sentence (unless it is an enumeration of actions that depend on a main sentence) as the infinitive does not act as a verb but as a noun.
• Agreement: When two words are joined grammatically (subject and verb or noun and adjective) they must agree in gender, number and person.

Sintaxis

In the syntactic review we analyse the construction of sentences, which should be clear, concise, well linked and well ordered. The following points should be taken into account:

• Long or short sentences: We should neither abuse complex structures with an excess of subordination and long incises, nor very short sentences separated by dots, with no connecting elements between them. It is advisable to combine the short sentence with the coordinated and subordinate sentences that reflect the logical relationships between the ideas.
• Relationships between words: Attention should be paid to concordance, hierarchy and cohesion between words within the sentence.
• Word order: It is important to order the components of the sentence well, as they gain or lose importance according to the place they occupy.
• Structure of each language: The genuine syntactic structures of each language avoid repetition, discordance, etc. and should never be copied from one language to another.

Punctuation

We will analyse when and how punctuation marks are used in the document, as they are as important as the words themselves, as they give order and meaning to phrases and sentences. These are:

• coma
• semicolon
• full stop
• full stop, new paragrah
• colon
• ellipsis
• dash
• hyphen
• brackets
• square brackets
• quotation marks
• exclamation marks
• question marks

• Structural consistency : The ideas should be well ordered and well distributed in paragraphs and sections. When introducing sub-sections related to a main section, the main section must be well connected to each of the sub-sections. In addition, all sub-sectionss must begin with an element of the same category (conjugated verb, infinitive, noun or complete sentence).
• Terminological consistency: In a technical document, the same term should be used for the same concept throughout the document.. In a literary document, on the other hand, we can be more creative and use synonyms.
  • If a word can be written in more than one way, the same form will be used throughout the text.
  • For different dialects of a language, we will use the same language throughout the document (e.g. English from the UK, Spanish from Cuba, Catalan from Mallorca).

Cohesion

It is the relationship of cause, consequence, cornological order, etc. that is established between the different ideas in a text. To do this, it is necessary to take into account the different linguistic links between words and sentences in a text and how and when we use them:

• • conjunctions
  • punctuation marks
  • resources for repeating concepts without repeating words (synonyms, pronouns…)
  • etc.

Style

This is perhaps the most complex part of proofreading, as it encompasses many aspects, as important as grammar and spelling.

Important aspects that we take into account when reviewing:

• Order:: sentences must be well ordered within the text (hierarchies, relationships of subordination, coordination, etc.)
• Graphic resources: Appropriate graphic resources should be used to facilitate reading and understanding of the text, such as font size, spaces between sections and paragraphs, emphasis marks (e.g. bold for headings or keywords). However, they should never be overused so as not to invalidate their function.

• Too complex words: In order to make a text easy to read and understand, it is best to avoid words that are pretentious, unusual or too broad in meaning. Priority should be given to clear and precise words.
• Superfluous elements: In general, it is advisable to write sentences in a concise style, avoiding superfluous and redundant elements that do not provide information.
• Elements too vague: We will also avoid paraphrases or circumlocutions and words with very broad meaning, as in many contexts they add words but not meaning.
  
• Unnecessary technical terms: When writing an informative document aimed at a wide audience, we should not overuse unnecessary technical terms that put distance between the text and the reader. If unavoidable, it is advisable to add a short description of the term to make it easier to read.
• Acronyms and initials: They should be used only when necessary and, if possible, with a description of the meaning.
• Impersonal constructions: Impersonal sentences hide the person responsible for the action and are therefore unclear. We will only use this type of sentence when the subject of the sentence is unknown, we do not want to make it explicit or it is unimportant.