Technical Writing Proofreading

Take an English technical document from "understandable" to "publishable." Proofread only — never rewrite content. Flag suspected factual errors; do not silently fix them.

Workflow

1. Read for tone first: Read the whole document and identify its type (tutorial / API reference / blog post / README). Tutorials tolerate a conversational voice; API references must be precise.
2. Build a terminology list: Scan for key terms (e.g. "callback" vs "callback function", "sign in" vs "log in") and check whether one concept is named several ways. Standardize on the most frequent form and note it in the checklist.
3. Check paragraph by paragraph, but only for these six categories — do not drift into "is this paragraph well written":
   • Typos and spelling: transposed letters, doubled words ("the the"), commonly confused pairs ("affect/effect", "its/it's", "complement/compliment").
   • Grammar: subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency within a procedure, dangling modifiers, missing articles before singular countable nouns.
   • Punctuation: consistent serial (Oxford) comma usage; hyphens in compound adjectives ("command-line tool"); no double spaces after periods; consistent use of em dashes vs parentheses.
   • Inline code and proper nouns: inline code, commands, file names, and paths in backticks; proper nouns in their official casing (GitHub, not github; JavaScript, not Javascript).
   • Sentence style: prefer active voice ("The system calls the function" over "The function is called by the system"); cut filler ("basically", "simply", "just", "very"); one idea per sentence.
   • Structure: headings in parallel form; lists use parallel items; steps in a procedure are imperative and numbered; acronyms are expanded on first use.
4. Output the checklist: list items as "Original → Suggestion → Reason", with line numbers or short quotes. Mark uncertain items [verify] instead of forcing a change.
5. Close with statistics: N items total, of which typos x, grammar y, terminology z, style w — so the author sees the distribution at a glance.

Rules