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Proofing

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About this lesson

Learn how to spellcheck, find a better word, or count the total words in a document.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Proofing.docx
172.9 KB
Proofing - Solution.docx
175.2 KB

Quick reference

Proofing Tools

Learn the importance of the features included in spellcheck, find a better word, or count the total words in a document.

When to use

It is very important to proofread your document before it leaves your computer. Misspellings and grammatical errors are viewed as unprofessional.

Instructions

Spelling and Grammar check

  1. Right Click any word with a red or blue underline and make your selections
  2. OR, click the Review Ribbon, , Spelling & Grammar
  3. A right-hand pane appears and provides a few more options.
  4. One feature is the “speaker” to listen to the pronunciation of a word.

Define

  1. Click the Review Ribbon, , Define
  2. A right-hand pane appears and suggests you “Sign in” to Microsoft.
  3. A much faster option would be to go to Google, type “Define:” enter the word to see a dictionary definition.

Thesaurus

  1. click the Review Ribbon, , Thesaurus
  2. Click the word you would like to replace
  3. Click the Thesaurus button (or press Shift + F7)
  4.  The Thesaurus pane appears on the right side of the screen.
  5. Choose the arrow by the new word and click Insert.

Word Count

  1. If you need a count of total words in your document,
    click the Review Ribbon, , Word Count

Kincaid Readability Statistics

  1. File Ribbon, , Options , Proofing
  2. Put a checkmark into
  3. This will show a grade-level review of your document. Keep in mind, it is measured by word count, word length, sentence length and paragraph length.
  4. For general business letters a 6th to 7th grade level is very good because it is short, simple and gets to the point. A college level paper should be anywhere above a 10th grade level
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  • 00:04 We're gonna review proofreading and editing,
  • 00:07 don't over look this it's very important, it makes you look professional or not.
  • 00:12 So on the exercise file there is a document full of misspelled words,
  • 00:17 and you can recognize those by the red underline, and
  • 00:19 grammar errors which have blue underlines.
  • 00:22 The quickest way to handle those is a right-click on the word.
  • 00:25 It shows you the correct spelling, gives you the option to ignore it or
  • 00:28 to add it to the dictionary.
  • 00:30 Generally, we reserve that for formal names.
  • 00:32 So, I could just click on powerful and it's fixed.
  • 00:36 Now I'm gonna click on the next one, which is click online.
  • 00:39 I don't know what's wrong with it.
  • 00:41 It's a grammatical word though.
  • 00:42 Though, and I can just guess it, they're both spelled right, what's the problem?
  • 00:46 Well, I can guess that it's probably too many spaces but
  • 00:49 let's go in to a little more detail.
  • 00:52 Instead of a right-click, go up to the review ribbon.
  • 00:54 On the far left is spelling and grammar.
  • 00:57 And I'm gonna go ahead and click on this one, and it shows me right here.
  • 01:01 I can ignore it.
  • 01:02 I can replace it with this, but
  • 01:05 right down below, it's telling me what the problem is.
  • 01:07 Space between words.
  • 01:09 Oh.
  • 01:10 Okay, so I can just click Change and now I'll go to the next word.
  • 01:13 In this case, it's blue underlined so
  • 01:16 it's not misspelled it's just the wrong spelling of the word.
  • 01:19 And so it's telling me maybe you'd like to replace it with this.
  • 01:22 And notice below it's giving me the descriptions of each word so
  • 01:26 I can make the proper choice.
  • 01:27 Now I'm gonna go ahead and change that one.
  • 01:29 In this case, it's a misspelling.
  • 01:32 I absolutely want to spell it correctly.
  • 01:33 But hm, if you're new to the English language, and
  • 01:36 you're still learning, look at this feature.
  • 01:38 There's a little tiny speaker right here.
  • 01:40 Listen what happens when I click that.
  • 01:43 >> Professionally.
  • 01:44 >> It's actually teaching you how to pronounce the words as well, I love that.
  • 01:48 Also, I've got a Change All button, which means it sees multiple words misspelled,
  • 01:53 the same word misspelled in the document, take care of it right now,
  • 01:56 one fell swoop, and I'll hit Change All.
  • 01:58 Okay, I'll leave it to you to finish that because I wanna
  • 02:00 move on to the other features.
  • 02:02 The next button up here is Define, so
  • 02:04 I'm gonna go back here to the word professionally and I'm gonna hit Define.
  • 02:09 Now notice the next pane comes out and just keeps the spelling pane open.
  • 02:13 I'll go ahead and close that for now.
  • 02:14 But on the dictionary it says to use dictionary you must
  • 02:18 sign in using your Microsoft account.
  • 02:20 You know folks there's an easier way.
  • 02:22 Just go to google type in the word define.
  • 02:24 Type in the word you want it to define and hit search and
  • 02:29 it will come up with the same thing.
  • 02:31 Notice this also has a speaker on it.
  • 02:33 >> Element.
  • 02:35 >> See, it's awesome.
  • 02:37 All right, so I'm gonna close the dictionary.
  • 02:40 What if I want to use a different word, rather than powerful, I'm looking for
  • 02:43 a different word?
  • 02:44 So we're gonna use a thesaurus.
  • 02:46 I'm gonna double-click the word powerful, I'm gonna click on thesaurus.
  • 02:49 Again, a task pane opens up, gives me any kind of option I want,
  • 02:53 gives me a speaker, so I can listen to it.
  • 02:57 If I decide I want to choose one of these, then I can click on, let's see,
  • 03:02 this drop-down arrow and hit Insert.
  • 03:04 Now watch the word powerful over on the left.
  • 03:06 It's about to be replaced when I click.
  • 03:08 And there it is, that easy to do it.
  • 03:11 All right, the next feature over here is word count.
  • 03:14 When I click word count, it's going to show me how many words are in this
  • 03:18 document, how many characters, how many lines and paragraphs.
  • 03:22 Its very interesting if you're a student or writing an article for a newsletter and
  • 03:26 you have a limit on how many words they're going to allow,
  • 03:29 this is how you keep track of that.
  • 03:31 So 398 words, I have a 500 word limit, I can keep going.
  • 03:36 Now there's another feature called the Kincaid Readability statistics.
  • 03:41 If you go to the File ribbon.
  • 03:43 Go down to Options and on the Proofing tab on the left,
  • 03:49 way down here, Show readability statistics.
  • 03:52 Put a check mark in there and hit OK, and
  • 03:54 you'll only see this when you're done with the spell check.
  • 03:58 So I would actually go through my spell check process and when I'm all done at
  • 04:02 the very end, let me just show you what's gonna happen cuz I took a picture of it.
  • 04:08 You'll see the readability statistics come up it'll give you the word count,
  • 04:13 the average words per sentence, but right down here and
  • 04:16 actual grade level, grade level 6.6.
  • 04:18 Now one thing you need to know about readability statistics
  • 04:22 you don't want too high of a grade level if you're in business.
  • 04:25 You wanna stick around the seventh grade level for business letters.
  • 04:29 If I'm in college I absolutely want a 12th grade level,
  • 04:33 which means longer words, longer sentences longer paragraphs.
  • 04:37 That's how this is measured, okay?
  • 04:39 For business, keep it short and simple.
  • 04:41 Sixth grade level for a business letter?
  • 04:42 Absolutely fine.
  • 04:44 That means most everyone's gonna understand what you're talking about.
  • 04:46 All right, well, that's the lesson and
  • 04:49 please make sure you proofread before you finish your documents.

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