Proofreading & Editing- Any Difference?

Proofreading & Editing- Any Difference Many freelancers often take up the work of proofreading and editing in addition to translation jobs. Some may even prefer to do one stream of work alone. There are many instances where the terms “proofreading” and “editing” are used for the same work although there is great deal of difference between the two. Let us now understand the difference between proofreading and editing: 1. While proofreading is mainly concentrated on checking up on grammatical, spelling and syntax errors and is no way concerned with the correct usage of words or terms editing involves mainly checking on expressions of the language. 2. Since language is not of much concern to the proofreader the checking is mainly done with the use of dictionaries to see if spellings are correct. Editing involves delving deep into with specialized dictionaries to check the correct usage of terms. 3. While the proofreader generally makes the corrections that are necessary the editor will suggest the corrections that are considered necessary to the original translator to implement them. 4. Proofreading does not employ the usage of software tools such as CAT but editing will require these in order to correct multiple errors in the text. 5. The usage of proofreading has been reduced as most errors that are corrected by the proofreader can be found out by translators themselves because of the software tools they use but editing cannot be done with these methods. 6. Proofreading is paid at a much lower rate than translation (around 1/4th the price) while editing is paid in par with translation rates (about 50% of the price as it takes lesser time than translation). These rates are preferably paid by the hour if it has to benefit the proofreader or the editor. It is important for every freelancer to know the difference between proofreading and editing and to actually know which job is being offered to them while taking up a project. Since proofreading rates are much lesser than editing rates, a confusion between the two can lead you to do more work for a lesser price.