: State of the art proof reading tools/methods While my skills of expression are okay, being able to observe errors within my own writing is truly lacking. The only methods I've found to be of

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I saw that you mentioned Whitesmoke in the comments, and one of the advantages of it over MS Word is that Whitesmoke can also check grammar and excessive use of words or phrases. There are a number of other software tools out there that do similar things, but ultimately you need to decide if it really makes things any easier for you. I found a review of ten writing enhancement tools that provides a side-by-side comparison of the different features available in each. This would be a good place to look for help in areas in which you may have a particular weakness.

Outside of using software, a suggestion I have seen that has worked for other people is to do your editing in a larger font. Seeing the text in larger format sometimes makes things stand out a little better. I've also seen suggestions to just read your work out loud yourself, as opposed to using a text to speech converter. This allows you to hear your content in your own voice, and then compare that to the voice inside your head that first came up with the ideas.

Utlimately, if you have a solid grasp of the language and understand different writing styles, you'll probably do better on your own. If you are writing in English as a second language and need help making sure that the grammar is correct, then one of these software products might be more useful.

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So you need a non-human external proofreader? Good luck with that.

There are some websites that may help, but I think it's going to come down to human eyes, in the end. But before that, you could try good old MS Word's spelling and grammar check. It's often wrong, but it's right often enough that you should at least consider its suggestions. I've also heard good things about Stylewriter, but the few times I've used it myself, I didn't find it significantly better than MS Word.

But that doesn't mean that technology can't help you proofread for yourself. Play with the font (size and style and colour), change the columns, even change the screen if you can (read on your e-reader, for example) as a way to freshen your perspective without waiting quite as long between readings.

You may also want to use some text-to-speech software to have the work read to you. You'll pick up on things through your ears that your eyes allow you to gloss over. (Obviously this won't catch homonyms or some other errors).

For non-technical tricks, try printing out your work, reading it backward, and learning and starting to search out the most common errors that you make so you can work to catch them more efficiently.

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