A proofreader in Spanish is a professional who is responsible for reviewing a work written in or translated to that language before it is published. This work can be any type of written material: a novel, an article, a brochure, the text of a marketing campaign, or any other text!
It is always advisable to hire a proofreader to ensure that the material reaches the reader as clean and neat as possible, whether it’s a spanish freelancer or an agency. To achieve this, the proofreader reads the text carefully, looking for spelling mistakes, while at the same time ensuring consistency in style.
What’s The Use of Proofreading?
Proofreading is almost as old a discipline as writing. Already in medieval monasteries, next to the copyists in charge of reproducing manuscripts, there were proofreaders watching over the integrity of the copies. But why is it so important that texts go through a proofreading process?
If a text has errors, communication fails, even on a small scale. A comprehensible text with mistakes can still mislead, distract, and even create a negative impression on the reader. Furthermore, errors can lead to misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the text. That is why it is necessary to hire a proofreader: to ensure efficient communication.
The proofreader’s job, then, is to make sure that the content of the text is presented in a clear, elegant and understandable way. Typing or spelling mistakes are problems that the reader does not have to face in a professional text. In addition, the proofreader not only prevents errors, but also ensures that the text has uniformity in its style. All this, without altering the essence of the original content, of course. That’d be the work of a Spanish content editor.
In Palabra, we offer a comprehensive Spanish proofreading service for any type of content.
Spanish Proofreaders Online
Everyone knows some kind of digital proofreader, such as the automatic proofreader in Word, the one in Google Docs or the cellphone auto-corrector (which made us look bad countless times). And there are many free Spanish proofreaders online and Spanish grammar editors. However, those programs are no guarantee that the final text will be free of errors. Although in recent years they have improved a lot, especially thanks to artificial intelligence, they still have problems when it comes to recognizing dialect variations, idioms, or even some basic Spanish grammar rules (for example, the differences between porque, porqué, por qué and por que).
In addition to these programs, there are some specialized tools that are dedicated exclusively to proofreading, many of which can be found online. Two of the most well-known are SpellBoy and Stilus.
Automatic Spell Check Vs. Human Proofreaders
Digital spell checkers and free Spanish proofreaders are very helpful, that is undeniable. But there are certain things for which a human professional is preferable.
Programs or applications are just another tool when it comes to giving the final touches to a text. However, a professional proofreader offers something impossible to replace: the perspective of a reader. The most important thing when conceiving a text is to know who it’s addressed to. Writing for elementary school kids is not the same as writing for medicine students. An Spanish essay proofreader has an academic audience in mind when doing his job.
Spanish editors, reviewers and proofreaders take care, at different levels, that the text is fit for its audience, by giving it one last reading that finishes setting its meaning. These professionals are responsible for ensuring that a book is presented in a clear, orderly and error-free manner, and that it has a consistent style throughout.
Hire a Spanish Proofreader
Proofreading is one of the many tasks involved in the process of publishing a book, but it’s an essential part of the process, just like writing, copy-editing and layout designing. All these disciplines intersect when producing a book.
Palabra has an interdisciplinary team of Spanish proofreaders, editors, translators and writers. The texts of our clients have the advantage of going through several hands and several pairs of eyes; our readings are intensive, thorough and dedicated. Our goal is to ensure that the client can put their vision into words. If you are interested in hiring our services, get in touch with us.
Proofreading: Prices
The price of proofreading in Spanish can vary widely depending on factors such as the length of the book, the urgency or the difficulty of the material. For example, an urgent text is charged more than one without a tight delivery date; likewise, a technical or specialized text is charged more than a text with simpler vocabulary.
Prices can also vary greatly depending on how many times the proofreader has to go through the text or how many people participate in the process. Generally, the books we see in bookstores have undergone several readings, performed by a number of different professionals besides the proofreader, like a Spanish text editor.
As a general rule, the cost of proofreading a piece is defined by the fees of the agency or the professional, which are calculated according to the number of words or characters in the text.
The rate per word times the number of words in the text equals the price of the proofreading.
Some professional organizations, such as PLECA, a Spanish editors association from Argentina, have elaborated tables of rates in which you can see orientative prices for Spanish proofreading. If you are interested in knowing our rates, send us the word count of your manuscript through our contact form so that we can send you a quote.
Conclusion
All manuscripts have mistakes; that’s a fact. Normally, those mistakes are indetectable for the author and the only way to identify them is to give the text to a pair of trained eyes, which can review it thoroughly. Good proofreading enriches the book and guarantees that the authors are issuing the best version of their work: a version free of mistakes and obstacles for the reader.
Translated by @florabosch
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