From experience I know how difficult it is to proofread my own stories. I try to put them aside for a day or two and then read the story with a fresh eye.

Nevertheless, typos, tense, point of view, quote errors, extra spaces, errant or extra words, etc. find there way into my published story. Of course, when reading my own story online after it's been published, the typos jump off the page at me.

So, would anyone be interested in creating a list of readers willing to proof stories?

Would a standard format for adding suggestions be in order? For example turning on "record changes" in Open Office combined with insert "comment" to explain any suggestions work?

Open Office is an open source free word processor and would eliminate any problem with the use of various word processors

Should there be notations regarding American versus British abilities? For example proofreader is one word according to Merriam-Webster if used in the United States. However, proof-reader or proof reader is frequently used in British English.

Anyone willing to be that "extra pair of eyes"? If so, how do we keep a current list of available proofreaders?

I'm surprised nobody has answered -- especially since some of the fiction entries miss a lot of points of grammar (like how commas make the difference between the plaintive "Let's eat, Grandma" and the canabilistic "Lets eat Grandma"). And many people have trouble with things like lie and lay (today I lie down, yesterday I lay down; just lay it on the table, yesterday I laid it on the table), and even "your" and "you're."

I suspect many potential proofreaders are afraid of being overwhelmed if if the pool is too small and/or finding their own grammar and spelling might be less than perfect. Not to mention that the original author should probably go over the "proofed" version (1) to see if he likes the way it reads, and (2) to catch any mistakes accidentally introduced by the proofreader.

The whole grammar thing reminds me of the joke about the panda who went into a restaurant, ordered and ate his meal, shot the waiter and headed for the door.

"Hey, wait," called the manager, "You just shot one of my waiters. And you haven't paid." The panda tossed the manager a dictionary and said, "I'm a panda, look it up!" The manager opened the dictionary and read "panda: a large bearlike mammal with characteristic black and white markings, native to certain mountain forests in China. Eats shoots and leaves."

I enjoy the various imperfections in stories as part of the character of the story teller coming through in his way of relating his tale. I want to know his education level, his regional dialect, the slang he uses, his art of mixing words and ideas in new and unconventional ways. Its a major part of understanding the narrator and how he sees the world.

If everyone always spoke perfect english, language and writing would suffer major losses of the personal differences and unique traits and character of the people involved.

Hey @racer and @cutnbulls2ox ,

Thanks. You both make great points.

I was thinking more along the lines of finding obvious errors that the author didn't intend. I wasn't thinking of changing sentence structure or removing regional dialect. I kinda like a y'all or a yous guys in a story.

Also, I was thinking of having the author submit a story to a beta reader or proofreader. The reader would mark it up with suggestions and return it to the author. The author could accept or reject any suggestions.

I really don't want to correct ending a sentence in a preposition or splitting infinitives. I say if infinitives want to split up, let them be miserable like all the others who are divorced.

I have seen mistakes that are obviously just a typo or a remnant left over from changing a sentence and failing to remove extraneous words. I think of those as coding errors that make the program run funny. It might still work, but would be better without the errors.