Proofread Checker: Should You Choose a Program or a Person?

Placing an order for proofreading editing services nearly always implies spending some amount of money on it. A student may find a company with appealing rates or the one that charges more and compensates for it by providing top-notch services, but it is a rarity to stumble across a free essay editing service on the Internet. At the same time, using an online or offline checker turns out more efficient in terms of finances, but what about the quality? This article will clear up all the pros and cons of using software for proofreading vs ordering services from online companies. By the end of the post you will know for sure which variant suits you best.

A proofreading checker and a proofreader: the speed of working

This aspect matters most when there is not much time to spend on proofreading and on brushing up the text. What are the options when a student has only several hours? We are sorry to admit this, but even premium quality essay editing websites will not be able to finish the task in a matter of 1 or 2 hours. Why so? Well, there are a number of reasons.

First of all, the work does not start immediately after clients place their order. Companies need some time to distribute orders among their professionals, while the latter have to get over with their previous assignments before moving on to the next ones. It may take less than an hour, but then you should consider the human factor. Everyone needs at least a short break, and if the editor has been working for half a day already, then he or she would want to have a lunch break.

It all adds up to Royal Editing offering 12 hours as the shortest deadline, but by picking this option, you can be sure that after this time the document will be back with you in the edited condition. We are proud that we are able to stick to our promises when it comes to meeting our customers’ personal deadlines (check out other principles of our work: https://royalediting.com/our-principles-of-rendering-professional-editing-services). And then, if you come to think about it, 12 hours do not mean much. Usually professors give at least a week for a writing task, and even if there is only one night left, 12 hours will be quite the cheese: that is enough time to place an order and to receive the paper back in the morning. It becomes practicable because Royal Editing is available during night shifts, if you did not know that.

When the ultimate goal is to be as quick as possible, and you do not mind some compromises as for the quality of proofreading, then entrusting the task to a computer program sounds like a reasonable concession. For example, learning how to correct punctuation in MS Word will save huge amounts of time right off the bat. If you turn on the feature of correcting mistakes automatically, you will be finished after several minutes, but this is the path that we do not recommend. Machine improvements will never be the same level as human work, so you had better double check everything the program suggests. Otherwise students risk finding themselves no better off than at the start.

Which method gives more accuracy

The speed was the only aspect where machine proofreading excelled the work of a specialist, and now we will give you two solid reasons to choose exactly a professional proofreader for your essay. But before this get familiar with our previous articles on proofreading at Royal Editing. They will give some insight and prepare you for what we are going to tell afterwards.

Now, if we compare the accuracy of a grammar and spelling checking program with that of an actual proofreader, we will get the most definite odds in the favor of the latter. At least we warrant that it is true when it concerns our specialists. They can professionally solve a lot of issues, namely:

  • Lack of proper formatting in a paper. Although it may seem like the least important thing, but it matters much in academia. Turning in an essay with flawless formatting is one of the strategies to save your college grades; read about other ways in this article: https://royalediting.com/how-proofreading-documents-saves-your-grades. Here human work is incomparable with that of a computer. If students decide to fix up formatting using a program, at the very least they have to enter proper values first: the font size, the margins, the spacing and so on. Then, it is important to set off headings, italicize some information and make a number of other amendments. Royal Editing gives an opportunity to put all these details out of the head and to enjoy quality proofreading that does not need your supervision.
  • Dealing with grammar dilemmas. Do you know all the differences between British and American English? Can you distinguish words like their and they’re, classic and classical, historic and historical, let alone come to grips with homophones, homonyms and homographs? Can you do it on the spot, without looking up every single word in a dictionary? Most of the students miss such mistakes, and, unfortunately, some spelling checkers are ignorant of this kind of errors too because both words from the pairs above exist in the language; the thing is that they are used in different contexts. Nobody can be 100% sure that software will recognize the context and make the right decision while proofreaders from Royal Editing definitely will. We are used to spotting mistakes where others would fail, and the level of our expertise is incommensurately higher than automatized services offer.
  • Imperfections in punctuation. We already mentioned that using the spell-check by MS Word everyone can achieve much better punctuation, but here again, the result will be no more that 80% accurate. Moreover, in several cases software will suggest unnecessary corrections, and only a trained eye can identify and ignore them. Making perfect decision has always been a part of an editor proofreader’s everyday work. In this aspect a professional wins once again, which leaves no doubts that when the goal is to be as correct as possible, a software-based proofread checker will not do.

The option of adjusting to personal demands

Sticking with your personal demands that are based on the professor’s requirements is one more thing that a program will never achieve. Whereas at Royal Editing everyone can write a long list of their instructions that will be displayed to proofreaders, everything still depends on the student if he opts for an online service or an offline tool. It is up to the student to accept or decline suggestions, but the decision-making process will not become automatized without loss in quality.

The situation is quite the opposite when you place an order from our company. You have to enumerate the requirements only once, in the beginning. We encourage you to do it as clearly as possible because this is the moment that shapes up the future essay. Only the client can know what is needed, so be specific in passing on this information to writers.

All in all, every time when quality is in the first place, only a professional proofreader is a reasonable option for students. Specialists can notice and correct every single mistake and ameliorate the appearance of the essay in the right way. Many students are already certain that our writers can make your essay the best. Software loses in quality and sometimes even makes things worse by suggesting superfluous or erroneous corrections. However, when you are so pressed for time that waiting several hours is already a problem, only then we advise students to resort to various checking tools. Of course, we cannot guarantee that this step will be appreciated by the professor.

For those students who always want to be sure in their papers and essays, we have prepared a bunch of links that will shed light on the most important details about our editing services:

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