Working with Non-Fluent Texts

On your first pass through the text, check for grammatical or spelling errors and sentence construction. Basically, the mechanical part of proofreading or line editing.

Watch out for any repeated quirks the writer has—verb tense errors, misuse of certain terms, misconstruction of certain phrases, etc. Recognizing these will help you edit the customer’s work (and means that you may be able to use ctrl/cmd+F to find any further instances of that error).

Correct any style guide issues that you spot: things like passive voice misuse, capitalization errors, the spelling of brand names, or the punctuation of bullets.

If there are any sentences you don’t understand, leave a comment identifying them as unclear.

In addition, check that the dialect (such as UK or US grammar/spelling conventions) matches the client’s stated preference.

At this point, you should be working on text that is comprehensible (except those passages you have identified as unclear) but perhaps a bit clunky and containing errors.

If you are editing, on this second pass through the text, focus on making sure the author’s arguments and main points read clearly and concisely. If it is part of the service, make suggestions to improve the structure and organization of the writing.

On your second pass, now that you’re more familiar with the text as a whole, you might have a better understanding of the “unclear” sentences you commented on in the first pass. If that’s the case, make changes according to the level of proofreading/editing required.

Do a final check for fluency and correctness; if necessary, by reading the text aloud. Ideally, the text should read as though it was written by a fluent English speaker.

You do need this final check, as it’s very probable that you have introduced some errors yourself. You may also notice some final tweaks and improvements you can make to the text.

At the end, run a final check for any double spaces—it’s always possible that one or two will have crept in!

Note taht this three-step process is written for proofreaders and editors who will not see the document again after they have worked on it.

Of course, you may have clients that will work on the document again and send it for further revisions. If this is the case, you should follow this process with any further edits that you make.

This comment is used to offer an alternative in the comment box, normally when it could be one thing or another: “Do you mean ‘three apples’ or ‘four apples’?”

It’s a good idea to restrict the number of times you offer alternatives in this way, as it’s time-consuming for the editor and the client both. It’s often better to use the comment below…

This is the easiest, quickest, and most effective “unclear” comment in most situations. It should be used when you have a pretty good idea what the client is on about but don’t want to presume.

You will use this comment when you’ve made your changes directly to the text but have had to exercise a bit of professional judgment to make the sentences clear.

This should be used only when a sentence is utter word soup: you have absolutely no idea what the author is trying to say and can’t even think of a way to hazard a guess.

It’s likely that you’ll find one or two sentences like this in most non-fluent English texts (and in some fluent ones as well!). However, you should aim to use this comment very sparingly, as it does not add any value for the client.

If you find yourself needing to use this comment more often, then it may be that the text is unproofreadable or uneditable, and you will need to refer it back to the client.

The full recommended comment here is:

This paragraph is rather unclear. I have made changes to promote clarity, but have had to use my professional judgment in some instances. Please review and check my suggested changes carefully.

This comment can be used when you’ve had a whole paragraph requiring some more heavy-handed changes. We all get them sometimes!

This is just to ask the client to check your changes, so they don’t think you’ve just run roughshod over their text.

When you finish editing a page, take a look at your comments objectively. Is your page overloaded with repeated or unnecessary comments? Too many comments will make your editing look messy and overwhelming for the client. Generally speaking, you should aim to comment strategically and effectively.

Pinpoint the error as specifically as you can. It’s usually not helpful, for instance, to highlight an entire paragraph and comment to the author that its meaning is unclear. This is overwhelming to unconfident writers (who might not know what exactly is wrong) and irritating to confident writers (who want to fix the issue as quickly and economically as possible). As such, it’s better to highlight the specific issue and quickly explain what needs to be done to fix it.

When working on non-fluent English, some editors fall into the trap of overestimating their own cleverness and underestimating that of their client. This can lead to a misjudged tone of voice (ToV) in their comments:

• Too basic: For example, if the client has missed a definite article somewhere, this doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t know or understand the rules around definite articles in English. It’s not necessary to leave a comment explaining this in depth.
• Adopting a “tutoring” ToV: Coupled with the above is the risk of adopting a didactic, professorial ToV. Some clients value comments that help them improve their English, but these should be written in a neutral, professional but friendly ToV.

When leaving comments to explain English language issues, should this be required or appropriate, it helps to imagine you are talking to someone you know by association, but with whom you’re not that familiar—for example, a friend’s respected older sibling. They have their own knowledge and expertise; your expertise just covers another topic.

Remember that non-fluent English writers are writing about something (often quite technical or complicated) in another language to their native one. That’s something to be respected.

You may find that non-fluent writers mix up or leave out articles or prepositions (e.g., using an where the should be, or leaving out to).

Whether to use a/an or the can sometimes be a little unclear in particular contexts. For example:

She worked for an organization for four years.
She worked for the organization for four years.

Out of context, both sentences work; you need to use your judgment and analyze the surrounding text to spot whether the client has used articles correctly or not. If it’s really not clear, then leave a comment.

You should pay particular attention to whether acronyms require articles or not. Writers can inconsistently or incorrectly use an article with an acronym; for example, “SEC says that…” should be “the SEC says that”).

Similarly, preposition misuse is often a tricky thing to spot. Sometimes the choice of preposition can appear arbitrary, and if you’ve been editing a document filled with incorrectly used prepositions for a while, you may even start to question your own understanding of the English language! At this point, it’s best to start reading the text to yourself out loud, or to stop editing for a few minutes to refresh your brain.

Writers might use tenses inconsistently or incorrectly, such as using the past perfect (“He had finished the report”) instead of simple past tense (“He finished the report”). The blog Found in Antiquity puts the issue facing learners of English very clearly:

English has twelve tenses … That’s approximately double the number of tenses which are available in Greek (which has seven) and Latin (which has six).

See if you can find a native speaker of English who can tell you how many verb tenses there are or give examples of more than six of them. They’ll be few and far between.

Non-fluent writers may also avoid or misuse gerunds (i.e, -ing verbs that function as nouns). For example:

Incorrect: She’s an athlete, so to swim comes naturally to her.
Correct: She’s an athlete, so swimming comes naturally to her.

Incorrect: A research plan was constructed for testing the pilot.
Correct: A research plan was constructed to test the pilot.