(The abbreviation would appear in the margin, probably with a line or arrow pointing to the offending element.)
Abbreviation |
Meaning |
Example |
| Ab | a faulty abbreviation | She had earned a Phd along with her M.D. |
| Agr See also P/A and S/V |
agreement problem: subject/verb or pronoun/antecedent |
The piano as well as the guitar need tuning. The student lost their book. |
| Awk |
awkward expression or construction |
The storm had the effect of causing millions of dollars in damage. |
| Cap | faulty capitalization | We spent the Fall in Southern spain. |
| CS | comma splice | Raoul tried his best, this time that wasn’t good enough. |
| DICT | faulty diction | Due to the fact that we were wondering as to whether it would rain, we stayed home. |
| Dgl | dangling construction | Working harder than ever, this job proved to be too much for him to handle. |
| - ed | problem with final -ed | Last summer he walk all the way to Birmingham. |
| Frag | fragment | Depending on the amount of snow we get this winter and whether the towns buy new trucks. |
| | | | problem in parallel form | My income is bigger than my wife. |
| P/A |
pronoun/antecedent agreement |
A student in accounting would be wise to see their advisor this month. |
| Pron |
problem with pronoun | My aunt and my mother have wrecked her car. The committee has lost their chance to change things. You'll have to do this on one's own time. |
| Rep | unnecessary repetition | The car was blue in color. |
| R-O | run-on sentence | Raoul tried his best this time that wasn’t good enough. |
| Sp | spelling error | This sentence is flaude with two mispellings. |
| - s | problem with final -s | He wonder what these teacher think of him. |
| STET |
Let it stand | The proofreader uses this Latin term to indicate that proofreading marks calling for a change should be ignored and the text as originally written should be "let stand." |
| S/V | subject/verb agreement | The problem with these cities are leadership. |
| T | verb tense problem | He comes into the room, and he pulled his gun. |
| Wdy | wordy | Seldom have we perused a document so verbose, so ostentatious in phrasing, so burdened with too many words. |
| WW | wrong word | What affect did the movie have on Sheila? She tried to hard to analyze its conclusion. |
Some Online Aids on Proofreading and Editing
• Editing and Rewriting (from the Guide to Grammar and Writing)
• “Revising Your Writing” from Paradigm
• “Editing Your Writing” from Paradigm
• Proofreading Strategies — from Bowling Green University