Use Those Arrow Keys

Here’s a proofreading tip for you.

Use those arrow keys on your keyboard.

I’ve found that it’s extremely advantageous to use the arrow keys to navigate through the document instead of scrolling with your mouse. Here are three reasons why.

1) They get you to slow down. It’s a known fact that the more slowly you proofread the better the results, and the arrow keys move you more slowly through a document compared to a mouse scroll. This will help you catch more.

2) They help you see extra spaces where there shouldn’t be extra spaces. The most common offender of this is that pesky extra space before a paragraph. It’s very common for me to find extra spaces before paragraph indents, but I only see them when I’m using the arrow keys, as they’re almost impossible to notice otherwise. These spaces need to be removed so every paragraph lines up, and the arrow keys are essential to catching this common error.

3) They help italicized punctuation to better stand out. Laser-focused proofreaders know to watch out for italicized punctuation. Italicized commas and periods can be difficult to discern with our eyes alone, but using the arrow keys helps them to stand out since your text cursor doesn’t remain completely straight when it’s within italicized text. In Microsoft Word, your mouse will also change when it’s hovering above italicized text, but the arrow keys help you to be more exact, in my opinion. If your cursor is immediately after a punctuation mark and your cursor isn’t completely straight, then that punctuation mark is italicized.

I’m sure there are other advantages to using arrow keys as a proofreader, but these are three that are most apparent to me in my daily work.

I’m Timothy, a proofreader and copyeditor specializing in fiction. I’m completely booked for the rest of 2024, but I’d love to start chatting about working together in 2025. I provide a free sample edit in order for us to determine if we’re a good fit for each other. Feel free to reach out to me.

Timothy