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Andrew's avatar
Andrew P Community Member

How can I prove that I can proofread well?

I'm new to Upwork and to freelancing as a proofreader. I think I have what it takes to be a competent proofreader, but I don't know how to show that to clients. I've taken all the relevant Upwork skills tests and got good results on most of them, though my score for the spelling test was only "Above Average", despite not differing much, numerically, from the other tests (I guess proper spelling is a more common ability than the others). But I don't know how much stock clients put in those tests. Some might even suppose I had cheated on them or something.

 

Is there a good way for me to prove my ability to proofread? Would taking an existing piece of writing that I have permission to use, proofreading and editing it, and then posting the resulting edit on my portfolio increase my chances of being hired? Or is there simply no way I'll be hired without some prior experience to display?

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Lila's avatar
Lila G Community Member

You kind of answer your own question. That's exactly what you should do. Take a writing piece (or make your own), proofread it as you would for a client, and post it as a portfolio piece (before and after). You should do various of these to show the quality of work.

Lila

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Lila's avatar
Lila G Community Member

You kind of answer your own question. That's exactly what you should do. Take a writing piece (or make your own), proofread it as you would for a client, and post it as a portfolio piece (before and after). You should do various of these to show the quality of work.

Lila
Christine's avatar
Christine A Community Member


Andrew P wrote:

I'm new to Upwork and to freelancing as a proofreader. I think I have what it takes to be a competent proofreader, but I don't know how to show that to clients. I've taken all the relevant Upwork skills tests and got good results on most of them, though my score for the spelling test was only "Above Average", despite not differing much, numerically, from the other tests (I guess proper spelling is a more common ability than the others). But I don't know how much stock clients put in those tests. Some might even suppose I had cheated on them or something.

 

Is there a good way for me to prove my ability to proofread? Would taking an existing piece of writing that I have permission to use, proofreading and editing it, and then posting the resulting edit on my portfolio increase my chances of being hired? Or is there simply no way I'll be hired without some prior experience to display?


If you post some before and after work, it certainly can't hurt. There's a lot of competition in that category so it's going to be extremely difficult to get work; anything that you can do to stand out, you should do. And if your test scores aren't impressive (top 10%), then I would hide them and re-take the tests as soon as you can. (Sorry, but I definitely wouldn't hire someone to proofread if they were showing only an average score on a spelling test.)

Preston's avatar
Preston H Community Member

re: "How can I prove that I can proofread well?"

 

portfolio

Andrew's avatar
Andrew P Community Member

That's a bit discouraging.

 

Honestly, I don't really know why my spelling score wasn't higher. A 4.40 out of 5 isn't bad, but apparently it's only good enough to get an "Above Average" rating. I mean, I wasn't looking up the spelling of words online when I was taking the test, since that would be cheating, but it would be easy enough to look up spelling for words I'm not sure of when actually doing a job. Should I hide that test result?

 

Most of the rest of the relevant tests I took were either top ten percent (six of them) or top twenty percent (two of them).

 

I guess I'll submit some examples, but if the competition is so fierce, maybe I shouldn't even bother.

Christine's avatar
Christine A Community Member


Andrew P wrote:

That's a bit discouraging.

 

Honestly, I don't really know why my spelling score wasn't higher. A 4.40 out of 5 isn't bad, but apparently it's only good enough to get an "Above Average" rating. I mean, I wasn't looking up the spelling of words online when I was taking the test, since that would be cheating, but it would be easy enough to look up spelling for words I'm not sure of when actually doing a job. Should I hide that test result?

 

Most of the rest of the relevant tests I took were either top ten percent (six of them) or top twenty percent (two of them).

 

I guess I'll submit some examples, but if the competition is so fierce, maybe I shouldn't even bother.


Hey, you were the one who said that your test results were less than impressive - but you're right, 4.40 out of 5 isn't the end of the world. And I didn't mean to discourage you, just give you a reality check. If you're so easily discouraged that you change your mind after one stranger cautions you in a forum, then I'm afraid you ARE going to struggle to cope with the rejection! I've been here for ages and I only win about 1 out of every 30-40 projects that I bid on. Just be aware that this isn't going to be easy, but you'll never know if you don't try.

Andrew's avatar
Andrew P Community Member

Well, I'll keep trying. At some point, though, I'll have to decide whether this is a venture worth continuing or if I'm just wasting my time.

 

Thanks for your input, everyone!

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If you haven't done any professional editing or proofreading, you are in a very competitive field. It's a lot more than just correcting some words and punctuation. Clients may ask that you provide proofreading marks on their documents, and if you do not know what proofreading marks are, then you need to search for a course and learn. Often times editing comes with that proofreading project. You better learn both.  

 

Being in the publishing business for going on 30 years now, I can tell you editing clients can be difficult and will nickel and dime you down to the very word per page. It's especially competitve on freelancer websites because everyone thinks it's easy money.  

 

As for UW tests, it's been known for a long time that the answers are all over the internet. They simply are no measure of experience and skills. 

 

 

Andrew's avatar
Andrew P Community Member

I was under the impression that proofreading consisted only of finding and correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, while editing is a lot more in depth. I'm aware that the two are often conflated.

 

I can restructure a sentence so that it communicates meaning better; I can pick better words, reduce redundancy, and improve conciseness. What I don't think I'm qualified for is editing at a big-picture level.

 

Just because some people cheat on the tests doesn't mean that they're meaningless for the people that don't cheat on them. I can see how clients might view them as worthless simply because there's no way for them to know whether the results are legitimate. But I know I didn't cheat on them, so, if nothing else, they have some value in showing me that I have potential in the area.