A firm here in Seattle recently asked me to give a workshop on proofreading. The partners had noticed some silly errors slipping through and their position on the issue was, as everyone's is, one of zero tolerance.
I frankly hadn't thought about proofreading in a while. Because most of us now draft at our computers, I sense that we've become nonchalant about the process: We trust ourselves probably too much.
When I started practice, rare were the lawyers who kept computers on their desks. Instead, for instance, I clearly remember our senior transactional partner leaning back in his chair, reading glasses propped on his nose, feet on his desk, staring into the middle distance as he mumbled into his dictaphone. In due course (very due course, as he was the senior guy), a draft document made its way back to his desk. He would edit and proofread, send the draft off again and, again, in due course receive something closer to a final version. The point is that when he saw those drafts he was seeing them for the first time, so he was able to bring a much more critical eye to the process.
Some errors resulting from the dictation process were easier to catch simply due to the nature of that process - a second party was involved. My sister-in-law worked at a law firm in a town in north Ontario (apologies to Neil Young) where one day a partner received a draft that included the sentence, "The defendant left town with his power mower." Such an event would not be actionable provided that the defendant owned the power mower. That he had actually departed with his "paramour" did create a problem.
Likewise, I was startled one day to find that my reference to a person who authenticates signatures was rendered "nota republic." As this country isn't even in the U.N., I edited accordingly.
One could even avoid some of these easy errors by agreeing with one's assistant on an oral shorthand. At the predominantly tax and corporate law firm where I was a summer associate, for instance, "501 little c in the hole, little three in the hole" was thus effortlessly rendered as "501(c)(3)."
Now, we don't often benefit from the kind collaboration of an assistant. Instead, we stare in solitary discomfort at our computer screens all day long. As a consequence, we see the same thing, over and over. What we must do is trick our brains into thinking they are seeing something new - something like what came out of our dictaphones and back to our offices, where we saw, for the first time, black letters on crumply paper. Here, then, some suggestions for fooling your brain:
The easiest method, provided that the schedule allows the luxury, is to draft late in the day and edit the next morning. Doing so involves the best friend we have, whether we're editing for content or typography: time. We can always improve our prose if we allow time between edits. Further, we're probably fresher in the morning and less likely to treat the proofreading as a suitable end-of-the-day, last-task-before-that-first-beer exercise.
Print it out. Thanks to the ease with which we can manage documents on our computers, we can edit for weeks without thinking of looking at a hard copy. Those with a conscience about the environment may resist using paper. But one sure way of looking at a document in a different way is to switch the medium - from computer screen to paper.
Draft in one location and proofread somewhere else, preferably where the lighting is incandescent. That is, go find a conference room, turn off the flickering, pale-white fluorescent bulbs and turn on a soft, warm lamp. Merely being in a different place makes us look at the page a little differently.
Read something else between edits. Lawyers, being intelligent, energetic folk, have sneaky tendencies to boredom and distraction. So, the problem with reading the same document over and over again is that we get impatient. Somewhere in the backs of our minds, we're thinking, "I've read this paragraph five times before, so I know nothing's wrong with it." Or, "I remember the mistake I found in this paragraph, it's fixed, what's next?" Or, "Should I have the fish for dinner tonight and get it over with?" None of these thoughts is conducive to productive proofreading. If we can interrupt our proofreading by at least skimming something else, we have some pretense of looking anew at what we're proofreading.
While looking at something different, try to manufacture even merely artificial differences between the new material and what you're proofreading. Read a different subject matter, in a different font, on different paper stock.
Speaking of different fonts, we can use our computers to trick our minds. Change the document's font so that your eyes aren't used to what you're seeing. Consider italics; one really has to look through the font to see the words. Using italics, however, may lead to severe eyestrain, if not brain damage, by quitting time.
Change the order in which you read the sections. Even though you're the author and know the subject matter intimately, if you read the last section first, you may be able to focus less on content and more on the look of the words by interrupting the logical flow of the substance. The more one reads backwards, in fact, one hopes the less sense the prose makes. The most radical form of this exercise, of course, is reading the document backwards word for word. Unfortunately, such a reading would probably render checking on substance impossible, and no one has time for such single-mindedness.
Look for one type of error at a time. Using this method is probably most effective for people who know that they make certain kinds of errors - citation form, for instance - all the time. Such a reading would necessarily be selective and couldn't be the only check we made, but it would certainly be focused. One client of mine frequently missed mistakes in the headings of documents - an understandable error, certainly; we tend to take headings for granted. So, even though a selective reading isn't going to catch everything, it will catch the errors that we are likeliest to make.
Enlist a friend. Of course, another set of eyes always helps catch errors, but our theme here is tricking our minds. One method is to ask a colleague to read the document aloud while reading along silently. Because the colleague is managing the substance of the document, our eyes are freed from the tyranny of thought and allowed to consider only the typography.
Speaking of enlisting a colleague, if there are any proofreading errors here, please blame the editor of this bulletin. I certainly will. Careful reading and good luck.
George W. Jarecke is the principal of The Practical Legal Writer LLC (www.practicallegalwriter.com), providing workshops and individual coaching in legal writing to lawyers, summer associates, and law students. For the next regular column on legal writing, please send your least favorite lines from correspondence you've received - or written - to GJarecke@practicallegalwriter.com.
