Proofreading can be quite a chore. Hours upon hours of looking for word usage mistakes, spelling issues, punctuation errors. This is a must to produce an acceptable paper or document. But, there's a level to proofreading that is being lost in the shuffle: Chutzpa!
To be daring when you write is to take your writing up a notch. This is the level it takes to post a successful blog or front page for your site. Some authors naturally include this before they write their rough draft. These are the gifted writers. Most wait on their rough drafts to use their creative writing powers; adding phrases and words to grab the readers' attention. Yet, an essential element is being wasted by not improving upon what is written during the proofreading stage.
Many times, proofreaders will go through a document 5-10 times looking for different types of errors. This is an excellent time to add some flare. Pick your keywords that you want to emphasize, and throw in a few adverbs or adjectives to describe them. Remember, if it's a noun, add an adjective. For example, if you want to emphasize a shampoo, you may say, "soft, enveloping...shampoo." Because the words "soft" and "enveloping" add more description to the main noun, "shampoo" they are called adjectives. Adjectives elaborate, or give details to the main noun, in our case the keyword shampoo. If the keyword is a verb, elaborate as well. For example, if you want to emphasize jogging, you may say, "lightly jogging." The word lightly is an adverb which is describing how the jogging takes place.
During the proofreading stage of your paper/document, use a highlighter to mark your keywords. Be careful not to add modifiers to each keyword because that will clearly show as well. Make sure that as you go through proofreading, you only add words that flow well with the text, author voice, and tone. Doing this will add 5 minutes to your proofreading time, but will reward you with a much better paper that attracts your readers' attention.
