User:Solol/Guidelines Sandbox/Proofreading Summary
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Warning
This is a draft of the revised proofreading guidelines. When proofreading at PGDP you should use the current proofreading guidelines located here. |
| Proofreading Guidelines |
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| Proofreading Summary |
| Proofreading on the Character Level |
| Proofreading on the Paragraph Level |
| Proofreading on the Page Level |
| Miscellany |
| Common Problems |
| Index |
| Version TBAdded. |
The Primary Rule
"Don't change what the author wrote!"
The final electronic book seen by a reader, possibly many years in the future, should accurately convey the intent of the author. If the author spelled words oddly, we leave them spelled that way. If the author wrote outrageous racist or biased statements, we leave them that way. If the author put commas, superscripts, or footnotes every third word, we keep the commas, superscripts, or footnotes. We are proofreaders, not editors; if something in the text does not match the original page image, you should change the text so that it does match. (See Printer Errors for proper handling of obvious misprints.)
We do change minor typographical conventions that don't affect the sense of what the author wrote. For example, we rejoin words that were broken at the end of a line (End-of-line Hyphenation). Changes such as these help us produce a consistently formed version of the book. The proofreading rules we follow are designed to achieve this result. Please carefully read the rest of the Proofreading Guidelines with this concept in mind. These guidelines are intended for proofreading only. As a proofreader you are matching the image's content while later the formatters will match the image's look.
To assist the next proofreader, the formatters, and the post-processor, we also preserve line breaks. This allows them to easily compare the lines in the text to the lines in the image.
Summary Guidelines
The Proofreading Summary is a short, 2-page printer-friendly (.pdf) document that summarizes the main points of these Guidelines and gives examples of how to proofread. Beginning proofreaders are encouraged to print out this document and keep it handy while proofreading.
You may need to download and install a .pdf reader. You can get one free from Adobe® here.
About This Document
This document is written to explain the proofreading rules we use to maintain consistency when proofreading a single book that is distributed among many proofreaders, each of whom is working on different pages. This helps us all do proofreading the same way, which in turn makes it easier for the formatters and for the post-processor who will complete the work on this e-book.
It is not intended as any kind of a general editorial or typesetting rulebook.
We've included in these proofreading guidelines all the items that new users have asked about while proofreading. There is a separate set of Formatting Guidelines. A second group of volunteers will be working on the formatting of the text. If you come across a situation and you do not find a reference in these guidelines, it is likely that it will be handled in the formatting rounds and so is not mentioned here. If you aren't sure, please ask about it in the Project Discussion.
If there are any items missing, or items that you consider should be done differently, or if something is vague, please let us know. This document is a work in progress. Help us to improve it by posting your suggested changes in the Documentation Forum in this thread.
Project Comments
When you select a project for proofreading, the Project Page is loaded. On this page there is a section called "Project Comments" containing information specific to that project (book). Read these before you start proofreading pages! If the Project Manager wants you to do something in this book differently from the way specified in these Guidelines, that will be noted here. Instructions in the Project Comments override the rules in these Guidelines, so follow them. There may also be instructions in the project comments that apply to the formatting phase, which do not apply during proofreading. Finally, this is also where the Project Manager may give you interesting tidbits of information about the author or the project.
Please also read the Project Thread (discussion): The Project Manager may clarify project-specific guidelines here, and it is often used by proofreaders to alert other proofreaders to recurring issues within the project and how they can best be addressed. (See below.)
On the Project Page, the link 'Images, Pages Proofread, & Differences' allows you to see how other proofreaders have made changes. This forum thread discusses different ways to use this information.
Forum/Discuss This Project
On the Project Page where you start proofreading pages, on the line "Forum", there is a link titled "Discuss this Project" (if the discussion has already started), or "Start a discussion on this Project" (if it hasn't). Clicking on that link will take you to a thread in the projects forum dedicated to this specific project. That is the place to ask questions about this book, inform the Project Manager about problems, etc. Using this project forum thread is the recommended way to communicate with the Project Manager and other proofreaders who are working on this book.
Fixing Errors on Previous Pages
The Project Page contains links to pages from this project that you have recently proofread. (If you haven't proofread any pages yet, no links will be shown.)
Pages listed under either "DONE" or "IN PROGRESS" are available to make proofreading corrections or to finish proofreading. Just click on the link to the page. Thus, if you discover that you made a mistake on a page or marked something incorrectly, you can click on that page here and reopen it to fix the error.
You may also use the "Images, Pages Proofread, & Differences" or "Just My Pages" links on the Project Page . These pages will display an "Edit" link next to the pages you have worked on in the current round that can still be corrected.
For more detailed information, refer to either the Standard Proofreading Interface Help or the Enhanced Proofreading Interface Help, depending on which interface you are using.