Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1141.
Proofreading a document.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1141.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue about proofreading a document going through something you write to make sure that there aren't any mistakes in it.
Let's get started.
Hey, Leanne.
You were an English major, right?
Yes.
Could you proofread this for me?
I don't know.
Do you want me to proofread it for content or for structure?
For everything.
So you're asking me to fact-check all of the facts and figures and to parse each line to find any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors.
That's right.
I used the spell check on it, but some typos may have slipped through.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were riddled with other errors, too.
Right.
What about the formatting?
Check that, too.
You can edit out the errors as you go along.
You want me to proofread and edit it?
Sure, if you don't mind.
You do realize that this is a 400-page document, right?
Is there a problem?
Russell begins our dialogue by saying, Hey, Leanne, you were an English major, right?
An English major is someone who majored in or specialized in a certain topic in college.
I was a Spanish and history major.
Those were the areas that I studied in depth.
When I went to college, when I was at the university.
Usually we talk about major, when we're talking about someone's undergraduate degree, someone's bachelor's degree.
So if someone says, I was a psychology major, he means he studied psychology in college.
That was the area that he specialized in.
Leanne answers Russell's question by saying yes, meaning yes, I was an English major.
Russell says, could you proofread this for me?
To proofread P-R-O-O-F-R-E-A-D a document means to look at it to make sure there are no errors, or to find the errors so that someone else can fix them.
Leanne says, I don't know.
Do you want me to proof it for content or for structure?
Content.
Here refers to the ideas and the words used to present information.
Structure, S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E, refers to how the document is organized.
Content usually refers to the message that you are trying to communicate the ideas, that of your document.
Structure refers to how the document is organized.
Russell says, for everything, meaning for both content and structure.
Leanne then says so you're asking me to fact check all of the facts and figures and to parse each line for any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors.
To fact-check means to make sure that everything that you say in a document is true, to research whether the things that you say are in fact correct.
So, for example, if I'm talking about the history of the United States and I'm giving certain information about the presidents, someone who was fact-checking my article would have to go back and make sure that what I say about each president is correct, that I have their names correct and the dates of birth correct, and so forth.
Facts and figures.
F-I-G-U-R-E-S is an expression meaning the information that you present in a document, often including numbers.
Figures is another word for numbers, such as statistics in a table or a graph.
So facts and figures means the specific details, including numbers and other statistical information, that might be in your document.
Leanne mentions parsing each line to find any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.
The verb to parse P-A-R-S-E here means to analyze something by taking a whole and breaking it down into its parts.
Normally, to parse is used to mean to analyze a sentence into its different syntactical functions.
This is a verb, this is a noun, and so forth.
But here Leanne is using it in a more general way, to mean to look at something and examine each of its parts.
The parts here would be the spelling, grammar, and punctuation of this document.
Spelling, of course, refers to making sure that the letters you use are in the correct order and are the correct letters.
English spelling can be very difficult for someone who doesn't read a lot.
The word to, for example, could be spelled T-O, T-O-O or T-W-O, depending on which meaning you are trying to communicate.
Grammar, G-R-A-M-M-A-R, is something you're probably already familiar with.
It's the structure of language, the rules that are typically followed when using a language.
Punctuation refers to the use of periods commas apostrophes, colons and other marks that you see in the written form of a language that help you understand it better.
Russell says that's right.
I used the spell check on it, but some typos may have slipped through.
Spellcheck is a function that is found in many word processing programs, including Microsoft Word, that helps you identify words that were spelled incorrectly.
A typo.
T-Y-P-O is a word that was misspelled incorrectly or a word that has some mistake in it.
That was accidental.
It wasn't because the person writing it didn't know the correct way of say spelling the word, but rather that he accidentally put down the wrong letters and therefore created a word that was misspelled.
To slip SLIP through... means to not be noticed, especially something that is an error, a mistake.
Sometimes there are errors that slip through our editors, mistakes that we don't find, we don't notice.
We would use the verb catch.
We didn't catch the mistakes.
We didn't catch the errors.
Russell says, I wouldn't be surprised if it were riddled with other errors too.
If something is riddled R-I-D-D-L-E-D with something, it has a lot of that, something that you don't want.
If something is riddled with errors, it is full of errors.
It has lots of mistakes in it.
Leanne says, right.
What about formatting?
Formatting, F-O-R-M-A-T-T-I-N-G, refers to the way that something is arranged on the page.
If you are creating a document in a word processing program like Word, you have to select the font name, the way that the letters look, the size of the letters and so forth.
This is all part of the formatting.
Russell says, check that too, meaning yes, look at the formatting when you proofread the paper.
He then says, you can edit out the errors as you go along.
To edit, E-D-I-T, out something means to identify them and remove them.
In this case, to find the mistakes and correct them.
Leanne then says, you want me to proofread and edit it?
Russell says, sure, if you don't mind.
If you don't mind means if that's okay with you.
Leanne says, you do realize that this is a 400-page document, right?
The word document that I have been using throughout my explanation here means written materials that have information about something.
A document is anything that contains information that is written either in electronic form or in paper form.
Notice that Leanne says, you do realize.
Sometimes we add the verb do, even though we could just say, you realize.
The do gives emphasis to the verb.
It gives emphasis to the idea.
For example, if your friend says to you, I'm going to ask that girl sitting at the next table for her telephone number, and you know this girl already has a boyfriend, you could say you do know that she has a boyfriend, right.
You could have just said, you know she has a boyfriend, right?
But the use of the verb do there is to emphasize, to put stress, if you will, on the meaning of the verb.
Leanne then says, you do realize that this is a 400-page document, right?
Russell then says, is there a problem?
Is there a problem means is there something wrong with that?
Of course Russell is asking Leanne to do a lot of work and we're not sure if Russell is actually going to pay Leanne anything to do that work.
It doesn't sound like it from the dialogue.
If I were Leanne, I'd probably say no.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hey, Leanne, you were an English major, right?
Yes.
Could you proofread this for me?
I don't know.
Do you want me to proofread it for content or for structure?
For everything.
So you're asking me to fact check all of the facts and figures and to parse each line to find any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors.
That's right.
I used the spell check on it, but some typos may have slipped through.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were riddled with other errors, too.
Right.
What about the formatting?
Check that, too.
You can edit out the errors as you go along.
You want me to proofread and edit it?
Sure, if you don't mind.
You do realize that this is a 400-page document, right?
Is there a problem?
Our dialogues are not riddled with errors in English, we hope, because they're written by the greatest scriptwriter on the Internet, our very own Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
