How to minimize language mistakes while writing?

Question

While it's true that: - Editors do proof reading for you, and - word processors have spell checking and grammar checkingyou do not always have an editor available, and software tools aren't perfect ("move" instead of "movie" is not a spelling mistake). Some burden falls upon you to proofread your writing, which brings me to my question:It's been known to me for a while that simply "trying really hard" to detect problems doesn't work. I did hour long sessions of editing and proofreading my work, only to return to it the next day and still find small issues with it. Of course, errors happen and it's not unexpected that small mistakes will slip by in a large piece of work, but still, striving for perfection is not a bad thing. So my question is, what do you do about it? How do you bring you error count to the minimum?

Answer 1

I write in sections, and at the end of each section I stop writing and read the work out loud and backwards. I do not read the words backwards, but the sentences. I find this helps me to know if I typed what I was seeking, and the difference in seeing forward vs. backwards allows me to catch missed punctuation or other errors. Sometimes I also ask friends or family to review my work for a second opinion.