Do you think that the Editor/Proofreading Program is Effective?

I always proof each review I edit three times. I am glad there is a limit to how many I can pick up because I feel as though I can give each review I edit quality attention. I usually make some corrections on the second and third times through the review, despite taking my time and doing a thorough job the first time. (I do admit, however, that I am extremely tedious and pretty nit-picky when it comes to grammar, so this is probably a bit extreme.) Granted, it takes a lot of time to proof a review three times, and not everyone can take the leisure to do that. (Back when EF's editors published reviews, I can guarantee you no one went over each review three times---not with the vast number of submitted reviews that passed under the noses of a small handful of overwhelmed editors! )

As Kindred mentioned, the reviewer can always go back in and make changes to a review once it has been edited, thus leaving behind errors that were not there at the time the editor published the review. Unfortunately, the editor does not receive a notification that the review has been edited again, so s/he cannot double-check the review. (I think it would be great if we did get such notifications! I also would appreciate notifications when a review is rated anything less than "excellent" so that the review can be checked by the editor again.)

Off-site reviews cannot be edited by the editor, other than the summary, pros, cons, and the experience section that is on-site. Additionally, follow-up reviews are very rarely edited by the original editor. (The follow-up editor is not shown though---only the original editor.)

I don't want to make excuses for blatant and multiple errors, but there are occasionally some very difficult reviews to edit. Most of the contributors have a good (and often even great) command of grammar, and the editing changes are quite minor. But sometimes you get a review for which you must laboriously decipher what is even being said sentence by sentence. You could theoretically send it back to the contributor to revise, but honestly, if the contributor's grasp of grammar is that poor, it is not likely that s/he can do a lot better. It is unreasonable to expect someone who struggles with grammar to take a review of a sex toy to a tutoring center to request help, so I am always happy to help the contributor out, especially if I think the contributor is sincere and is sharing an honest opinion with the community; I think it's worth the effort to make the review readable. But sometimes the amount of work one must do to make a review readable is overwhelming, so errors one might not otherwise miss are overlooked in the struggle to simply make the review readable and understandable. (I hope this makes sense.) I would always welcome and deeply appreciate a private message pointing out a blatant error in any review I edit.

As far as copying and pasting into a software program with a spelling and grammar checker, there are too many errors that are overlooked by such programs, so I hope no one uses that as their main form of proofing! For example, if the list of errors in the original post were posted into Microsoft Word, the grammar checker only catches the "there there" duplicate, "masterbator," and "goo." (Of course, there are some correct applications of the word "goo.")

Just my $0.02. less

"But sometimes you get a review for which you must laboriously decipher what is even being said sentence by sentence."


THIS. This is just what I was coming back to write about. I have had quite a few reviews with so many run on sentences, that don't make sense if edited properly (which means leaving the reviewer's voice as is). We are not allowed to restructure a whole sentence very often, and my biggest struggle is trying to keep the person's voice without re writing the whole thing for them.

I am currently doing one such review right now, and it isn't exactly easy to read a whole paragraph made of one sentence. less

Why not just rate the person who edited it poorly and move on? Or email someone in the company that this person has repeatedly made mistakes so that they can be bumped?

It doesn't mean that the whole proofreading program is bad, just some proofreaders are. less

I've been noticing a lot of mistakes in reviews lately that have been "edited" by people in the "Proofreading Program". These have included really embarrassing spelling and punctuation errors which should have been very easy to correct. Even worse, some of these errors appear in first sentence of a review or right under the title. For example, the following spelling/grammar/punct uation errors appeared in one recent review:

* "then" (should have been "than") - this error appeared in right under the title and also appears a second time, later in the review.
* "Lets" (should have been "let's") - this appeared as the first word in a paragraph
* "there was no problems" (should have been "there were no problems")
* "some times" (should have been "sometimes")
* there there (duplicate word)
* goo (should have been "good")

In another "edited" review I just read a moment ago, the following errors were not caught by the editor:

* masterbator (Ugh! How could someone not catch this spelling error on a sex toy site!? Just as bad is that this spelling error appears twice in the first two sentences of the review!)
* effect (should have been "affect")
* "I would recommended it" (should have been "I would recommend it")

I hate to be critical as I certainly make mistakes too (which I correct if I'm able to) but all of the mistakes just listed are easily be caught by merely cutting and pasting the text into a word processor. In both of the above cases, I ended up giving the editor of the review a "poor" rating - something which I also do not like to do.

Do you believe that editor/proofreading program is: less