Proofreading is an essential part of the e-Learning development process and a necessary step before you’re ready to publish your final course. It ensures that your e-Learning content communicates your information clearly and effectively with your learners, so they get the most out of your online training course. Follow these 6 quick tips when proofreading your next e-Learning course:
- Read aloud. This forces you to slow down when you’re proofreading, so you don’t miss anything. It also allows you to hear the words on the screen, making you pay attention to how your writing sounds and flows. Reading aloud is especially helpful when you’ve spent so much time creating a course that you may miss the simple mistakes.
- Know your weaknesses. If you learn to recognize a few of your most common errors, it will help you be more efficient and effective with your proofreading. Let’s say you have trouble using apostrophes with plural and possessive words. You should know to look carefully at these words to make sure you’ve used learner’s as possessive and learners as plural.
- Check agreement. Subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement are two of the most common writing errors. Make sure you stay consistent when using singular or plural nouns.
Here’s an example of a common mistake: “A student will take their e-Learning course seriously if they aren’t distracted by careless errors.” In this mistake,
student
is singular, but
their
is plural. The easiest way to correct this is by making the entire sentence plural: “Students will take their e-Learning course seriously if they aren’t distracted by careless errors.” - Check spelling. Unfortunately, spellcheck won’t catch all your spelling errors, so watch for homophones—words that sound the same but have different meanings and are spelled differently. Some of the most common homophone errors are with your and you’re, there, their and they’re, its and it’s or hear and here.
Other spelling errors that often go unnoticed are typos that spellcheck doesn’t catch, like he instead of the. - Check punctuation. Misplaced or misused commas can confuse your learners and slow them down. Use commas and other punctuation correctly to make sure your writing is clear and interpreted the way you intended.
- Get a fresh perspective. Ask someone who has never seen your e-Learning course to take a look at the final writing to proofread. Someone with a fresh perspective may find errors you would have never noticed as the developer.
To quickly proofread, edit and get feedback from others, try ReviewLink™ online collaboration and course review tool. ReviewLink for Lectora® V11 e-Learning software makes it easy to review e-Learning content and communicate with your team throughout the entire review cycle, especially proofreading.
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