Proofreading Guide

Proofreading Your Announcement Text

To help your order go into production quickly, and to help eliminate the extra step of having us contact you about the text, you may check it over yourself before submitting it. Here are the four most common mistakes that people make when composing their announcement text:

1.
The most common error we see is that the text begins in third person (as though a 'third party' is speaking) and then changes to first person. See below for an example of such an error, and three possible ways to correct it. Note that the third "correction," using the parent's names at the bottom as a signature, requires an extra line if there is to be a skipped line before the names.

2.
The second common problem we see is inconsistency in the way the time, date, and year are written. They should be ALL written as numerals, or they should ALL be written out using words. The expressions "p.m." or "a.m." are only used with numerals. Likewise, the expressions "in the afternoon" or "in the evening" are only used when writing the time with words. Note that if the year is stated in the text as in "Class of 2009," it is not usually stated again when giving the date of the ceremony. See the examples below:

3.
The third common problem involves corner copy. If you have checked the box to use corner copy, be sure that you've given us the actual text that you want used for corner copy. We use your last line of the main text as the corner copy, and this means that you will have one less line to use for the main text. Often people check the box saying that they want corner copy, but do not give us the text for it. The order is held up while we try to contact them to find out what the corner copy should say and help them decide how to reword the text to use one less line so that there is room for the corner copy.

Another problem with corner copy is that people sometimes give us a text that is too long to fit in the corner. Corner copy should be about half the length of the other lines in the text. If it is so long that it would extend past the middle of the card, then the information should be centered, in a smaller point size, preceded by a skipped line. If you would like us to use that format, do NOT check the box for corner copy, and write a note in the text box explaining that you'd like the last line centered, but in a smaller font. (Remember, "R.s.v.p. means "please respond," so stating the information as "Please R.s.v.p. is redundant and incorrect.)

4.
If the text is written in first person ("we" announce...) normally there are names at the bottom to tell the reader who the "we" is. If you don't include any names at the bottom, we will contact you to make sure that this was not just an oversight. If you have written the text in the first person and do NOT want names at the bottom, please put a note in the text box on the order form to let us know. That way we won't ask you about it, and the order will get to the printer more quickly!