Who Can Be A Freelance Editor Or Proofreader? Submitted By: Julie Jessen Anyone can be a Freelance Editor or Proofreader. That is, anyone with a good grasp of the English language, or native language if you want to edit non-US documents. Do you cringe at typos and grammatical errors in newspapers, magazine articles, Internet articles and web sites? Do you find yourself correcting the errors as you read along? Then being a freelance editor or proofreader might be the home-based business for you.It’s true that many freelance editors have college degrees with an English Major. Or at the very least,

they’ve taken a good number of English classes. However, having a degree is not a requirement for being a freelance editor. The only real requirement is a good, no a great, grasp of the English language. There are many successful freelance editors today, who have taken some classes, but have no degree. Those editors have a great grasp of the language.Be careful though. There are many confusing properties of the English language. There are many different parts to a sentence, a paragraph, and an entire paper. It’s important to know about spelling and capitalization; but it’s just as important to know when to use a comma versus a semi-colon,

what exactly a dangling modifier is.If you think that just because you use a program that checks spelling and grammar, you’re all set, you’re dead wrong. These programs are limited in their capabilities. They can’t check a writer’s intonation, intended purpose, or desired outcome. These programs often check to ensure a word is spelled correctly,

but can’t determine if it is the proper word to use in a statement.For instance, the sentence below was marked as correct using a spelling/grammar-checking program:
Incorrect: The birds were in each of there nests.Correct: The birds were in each of their nests.You can probably see the error, but these so-called “expert” programs cannot. And if you can’t see the difference, then walk, no run to the nearest door!
Seriously though, Click here for the rest.