How to Avoid Scope Creep: The Sole 3 Freelance Proofreading Responsibilities

You know the scenario.

You take a proofreading job and charge a rate based on the amount of time you think it will take. But halfway through you realize the document is a mess, you’re behind schedule, and you’re getting more frustrated by the minute.

The likely culprit? Scope creep.

Scope creep is one of the worst things that can happen in a proofreading contract. Before ever starting a project, it’s a must to know what you are committing to. For this reason, it’s imperative to understand freelance proofreading responsibilities—what you need to focus on as well as what should not be part of the job.

What you are responsible for as a freelance proofreader

There are, in fact, only three things you are responsible for when you take a proofreading job. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

Fixing all grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes

This is the no-brainer.

The bread and butter for a proofreader is finding and fixing any and all mistakes. Indeed, ask anyone on the street what a proofreader does, and this is the answer they will give you.

Any contract you sign will involve this scope of work, at minimum.

Ensuring the content is readable and flows

Most people don’t know the difference between a proofreader and an editor, but in practice, it usually doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, clients want error-free, readable content, which means you will most likely wear two hats regardless of how a job or contract is worded.

Proofreading, technically speaking, only involves finding and fixing spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.

Editing, meanwhile, takes things a step further and corrects word usage and stylistic components. Think of this type of work as fixing up and polishing anything up to the sentence level.

Most clients actually want this work to be done in addition to basic proofreading.

Commenting on anything unclear or blatantly incorrect

Sometimes a piece of content will have a phrase, sentence, or even paragraph that makes no sense. Try as you might, and you just can’t make heads or tails of it.

When this happens, the best course of action is to highlight it and add a note asking for clarification. 

Occasionally, you may also find something blatantly wrong in the content you’re proofreading—something that just can’t be true, defies logic, or defies common sense. Often these are typos (e.g., referencing the year “2004” instead of “2024”), but even so, you may not have the information to correct them. 

I recently ran across some copy that said “the age range for this study was 60–791.” I don’t believe Methuselah was involved in the study, so clearly 791 is wrong. But what was the right number? 79? 91? 71? There was no way for me to know.

In cases like this, leave a comment asking a tentative question: “Hey, I noticed you wrote ’X’. This seems off to me—can you verify that?”

What you are not responsible for as a freelance proofreader

None of the above should be a surprise to you. These are the tasks that make sense. They provide the appropriate value to the client based on what they paid for.

It’s all too easy, however, to start adding extra work for yourself—even unconsciously. If you find yourself slipping into any of the below tasks (unless it’s clearly specified in the contract, of course), it’s paramount to stop and adjust course. In the best case, you’re giving the client extra work for free. In the worst case, you’re going to end up frustrated and unhappy with the work and even the client.

Here’s what not to focus on as a freelance proofreader: 

Ensuring all claims are correct

We noted above that it’s best to point out (gently!) blatantly wrong information, but subtler errors may exist.

It is not your job to find them.

Unless you are an expert in whatever field you happen to be proofreading—and advertise your services as such—trying to investigate every fact or claim is only going to prolong your work and end up frustrating you.

The same idea applies to technical or legal data. While it’s a good idea to give a sanity check to charts and graphs, looking for obvious errors and omissions, the overall accuracy of the data is not your burden to carry. The client should have nailed that down before they ever contacted you.

Performing developmental editing

The greatest temptation I have seen is to spend too much time scrutinizing the text at the wrong level.

It is very likely that you will be asked to proofread content that, for all intents and purposes, is a disaster. Perhaps you’ve been tasked with a paper that doesn’t flow well from section to section, or whose conclusion doesn’t tie into the body. Maybe it’s a blog post or book that’s all over the place. 

It’s easy to take ownership of this problem. After all, you want the best for your client, and you don’t want a bad piece of content to sully your reputation. 

But the truth is you’re not being paid to provide developmental edits. This is far different from proofreading or basic editing, and it needs to be done before you ever lay eyes on a document.

The best way to avoid this is to verify the work is ready for you during your pre-contract conversation. This may involve educating the client about the different stages of editing.

And if they assure you it’s ready, send it over, and it’s a big steaming hot mess (this has happened to me, by the way)? Then give the client back a grammatically correct steaming hot mess. (Also, just because you work on a document, it doesn’t mean you have to add it to your portfolio.)

Worrying about what happens next

Lastly, it’s important to remember that your responsibilities as a freelance proofreader end when you hand the corrected copy back to the client. 

Unless you have a good idea that the client is going to use their content for illegal activity (in which case, why did you sign the contract?), however they use it is on them. A client may choose to put a finished blog post on a spammy website. They may choose to use it as part of a black-hat SEO tactic or private blog network. While I don’t endorse any of these activities, none of us can control our clients.

At the end of the day, it’s their content, not ours.

Be vigilant when it comes to your freelance proofreading responsibilities

Scope creep is the enemy of any project—proofreading included. Your freelance proofreading responsibilities begin and end at finding and fixing mistakes, ensuring clarity, and pointing out obvious errors and issues. 

Any extra work should be explicitly agreed to in advance, and your rates should reflect the additional value you’re providing. Otherwise, you are likely on a path to frustration and wasted time.

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