Throughout this website I refer to proofreading as the process of checking a document for mistakes, consistency, etc., before it is published, submitted, or put to whatever use it was written for.
There are actually two processes I can offer: proofreading and copyediting. I have lumped them together for the sake of simplicity, and because most people who want a document checked will refer to this as proofreading.
In publishing, it is copyediting that comes first, and it includes much of what we usually think of as proofreading: correcting, or querying, spelling, grammar, consistency, structure, etc. The work of the proofreader comes nearer the end of the process, and involves checking that what is about to be printed matches the decisions of the author and editor, as well as any layout or visual issues that have arisen along the way.
Much of what I do for individuals, such as academic work or a one-off report, is therefore a combination of these processes – your document is not going through several stages as a book would with a publisher. I am still happy to call it proofreading. Whereas if I accept a proofreading job with a publisher, it might be quite different from a copyediting job.
These are very much oversimplified definitions – not least because of technological changes in publishing, which mean that a proofreader doesn’t always have the ‘original’ to check the ‘proofs’ against, because so much work is done electronically. For a more detailed definition of these and other processes in publishing, New Hart’s Rules is the authoritative book to consult.
Accuracy Works 