Artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage. Some people love it, some people hate it.
However you feel about it, no one can deny that it can do a lot of amazing things. But as a proofreader, have you ever thought about how you could use it to your advantage?
In this post, we look at how to use AI to help you become a better freelance proofreader. I’ll give you five concrete examples that you can begin implementing today.
Is AI coming for your job?
The elephant in the room
Before we dive into how to use AI to help you as a freelance proofreader, we need to discuss the elephant in the room: Many people in many different industries are concerned that AI is going to take their jobs.
So what about proofreaders? Surely we are squarely in the crosshairs, right? After all, can’t AI find and fix mistakes much faster and cheaper than a human?
Unfortunately, my crystal ball is in the shop right now, so I don’t know whether or not AI will replace everyone’s jobs in the future. But I highly doubt it—at least in its current iteration.
True vs false
The biggest issue in my mind is that AI does not—and cannot—know the difference between what’s true and what’s false. AI can only tell you what is probable based on the data it’s been taught.
As a proofreader, if you come across something blatantly wrong in a text, you may consider it your ethical obligation to let the client know. AI, by contrast, could breeze right on by it without a second thought.
For example, let’s say you are reviewing a business report and notice that annual revenue is reported as $1 million on page one and $10 million on page five. Which is correct? Grammatically, both are—but of course, in context, only one of those amounts is the right one. As a human with an eye for detail, you will catch this. Unless the AI is specifically told to look for it, it likely won’t.
“Prompt engineer” is a job now
This brings up a good point: AI is only as good as you make it. Have you noticed that there is now suddenly a demand for AI prompt engineers, an entirely new job? A company that wants to maximize its AI usage will ultimately have to hire prompt engineers.
In other words, in order to save money by having an AI proofread content instead of a person, a company will still eventually have to hire someone who knows how to write the right prompts to get the work done. This means adding complexity to the process without reducing cost or headcount. That doesn’t make sense (at least to me).
The one thing AI will never be is human
And finally, at least for now, if a person or company is writing content for people, the best “final QA” for that content is another person. At the end of the day, only a human being with emotions and a shared lived experience will be able to know if a blog post, article, or email is ready to connect with its intended audience in a way that a soulless computer program can’t, no matter how sophisticated it might be.
Five ways to use AI to help you become a better freelance proofreader
The above may make it seem like I’m a Luddite who wishes AI would go back to wherever it came from. But actually, the opposite is true.
I use AI in many different ways to make my job easier. (I just don’t think it will be replacing me anytime soon.) It’s a godsend to solopreneurs like me because it allows me to get more done faster.
To illustrate, here are five uses of AI I’ve found that directly benefit me in my proofreading business and that can help you too.
Quick and easy brainstorming
It’s not unusual to come across a bit of redundant copy that needs to be fixed. For example, I often see “adding additional” in business content, as in, “An opportunity exists to add additional revenue sources…”
It can be hard to come up with a better way to phrase such a sentence, however. At least for me, there aren’t a ton of alternatives that immediately spring to mind. (And if this one doesn’t befuddle you, some other commonly-used-but-wrong phrase probably does.)
When this happens, I open up my trusty AI assistant (I use Voila) and ask it to give me five alternative ways to say “add additional.” Usually, at least one of the options it provides will work.
This trick also works with quickly finding synonyms or antonyms. You can even ask AI to figure out what word you need but can’t quite think of in the moment. Even a prompt like “what is the word for people who check other people’s work in a factory setting?” should come back with “quality control inspector,” for example.
Get unstuck quickly
The next way to use AI is kind of a supercharged version of the previous method. But this time, we’re going bigger.
Sometimes it’s not just a confusing word or phrase that gives you pause. Often an entire sentence or even paragraph just doesn’t quite sit right. And sometimes it’s bad enough that you can’t even figure out where to begin to fix it.
In these cases, you can ask AI to help. Simply paste the offending text into a chat window and ask it to rewrite the text for clarity. While this isn’t guaranteed to spit out a perfect result, it will usually be good enough that you can then refine this new version to come up with a solution that does work.
This trick also works if you need to make content shorter or longer, change the tone or style, or do anything else you can think of. Again, the key is to remember that AI is likely not going to give you the final answer—but it will provide options to help you get unstuck and moving forward again.
Tailored Google searches
Google is great, but sometimes you need more precision.
With a good prompt, AI can act as your research assistant, combing through search results to find the right information more quickly.
Let’s say you’re looking to compare APA vs AMA style conventions. A typical internet search will return approximately 11 billion results, and the results on page one (or two, or three) may or may not be helpful.
Rather than randomly click on websites, ask AI to run the search for you. (You’ll need an AI that can access the internet for this, such as Bard.) A prompt like “Give me links to 10 web pages that explain the difference between APA and AMA style guides clearly and succinctly” could give you a much better starting point. When I ran this prompt, Bard even gave me a summary of each page, making it even easier to find the information.
Write better job proposals
AI can give you a head-start on writing a good job proposal.
It can really be as simple as pasting a job description you’re interested in into an AI tool and asking it to write a proposal or cover letter.
Again, the idea isn’t to spit out a completed, final product, but to give you a starting point. It’s much easier to massage and edit an existing bit of copy than to start with a blank page.
Create blog posts and social media content faster
AI also greatly helps with creating marketing content.
If you have a website or social media presence, artificial intelligence can make you more efficient by:
- Quickly brainstorming blog topics
- Creating multiple article headline options
- Suggesting blog outlines
- Writing draft social media posts
- Providing potential SEO keywords to rank for
I would offer one word of caution here: don’t rely on using AI to write long-form blog content. As of right now, it does not do a good job at this. AI blog content generally reads like a term paper written by a bored high schooler—which is probably not the impression you want to leave with potential clients. Plus, 100 percent AI-generated content will likely be pushed down in search results.
And for any of the above items, remember that you are not subject to AI; AI is subject to you. If AI spits out an answer you don’t like, then don’t use it! Tweak your prompt or simply move on.
Next Steps
This post enumerates just a small portion of what AI can do. But as a professional proofreader and editor, I find these five things to be most useful to me in my business. Which of these things can you incorporate in your own proofreading business today?
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