One of the distinguishing factors between a professional newsletter that promotes your expertise and one that makes you look more amateurish is proofreading. But proofreading your own work can be harder than you think. Here are some tips that will help you catch more errors.

• Don’t let deadlines make you skip the proofreading step.
• Run your copy through a spell-checker.
• Look for these common trouble spots: “your” and “you’re;” “its” and “it’s;” “there,” “they’re” and “their;” “to,” “too” and “two.”
• Make sure you’re capitalizing only proper nouns.
• Have someone else read your copy after you’re done.
• Proof from a print-out; it’s easier to spot mistakes on paper.
• Start at the end, and read backwards to help mistakes stand out.
• When in doubt, look it up. Have a good dictionary and style guide handy.