Proofreading Tips for Catching Typos: Checking Your Writing with Text-to-Speech

Why you can't see typos in your own writing

Writers miss their own typos because they already know what the text says. You think you're reading, but you may really be replaying the sentence you remember.

• You aren't looking at each letter: people recognize words by their shape, so similar-looking errors, like "form" for "from," slip through.
• Your memory is strong right after writing: what you meant is still in your head, so your brain fills in the missing words on its own.
• You get used to how the screen looks: reading many times in the same font and width fixes your eye movements, and you start skipping the same spots.

The remedy comes down to one thing: change the conditions you read under. Standard methods such as taking a break, printing it out or changing the font all follow this principle. Text-to-speech changes the conditions the most. Listening instead of following with your eyes makes it harder for memory to fill in the gaps.

Errors reading aloud catches and misses

Text-to-speech can't do everything. It's realistic to be clear about what it's good and bad at, and combine it with other methods.

How to proofread with browser text-to-speech

You don't need special software. Just paste your text into the browser and play it. The text is read by your device's speech engine and isn't sent to a server.

1. 1

   Paste in your text

   Paste the body into the text-to-speech tool's input box. It takes up to 2,000 characters at a time, so split long text at breaks such as headings.

2. 2

   Choose a speed

   You can set the speed from 0.5 to 2.0. For proofreading, use about 1.0; once you're used to it, you can still catch problems at about 1.2. To check the structure of a complex sentence, dropping to 0.8 makes mismatches easier to hear.

3. 3

   Listen to the end without stopping

   Even if something sounds off, just note it rather than fixing it then. If you start editing partway, you lose the rhythm of the whole.

4. 4

   Fix the noted spots together

   Go through what caught your ear in order. Most come down to a sentence being too long or too heavy, and splitting it into two solves it.

5. 5

   Have only the fixed parts read again

   It's not unusual for a fix to introduce a new error. Paste just the fixed paragraphs back in to check; it takes only a few tens of seconds.

Suggested voice and speed settings

The voices come from your device and browser, so the choices vary by environment. When reading a text in a given language, listing only that language's voices makes choosing easier.

Dealing with errors reading aloud can't catch

Sound can't settle words that sound alike, numbers, proper nouns or inconsistent spellings. The reliable way to handle these is by eye, checking for one thing at a time.

• Look only at numbers: amounts, dates, times, counts. Compare them against the source along with their units (currency, people, items).
• Look only at proper nouns: company, personal and product names. Settle the correct spelling in one place, then compare.
• Look only at inconsistent spellings: use search to look for variants such as "website" and "web site" and see whether they're mixed.
• Look only at links: actually open the URLs in the text. Reading aloud can't tell you whether they're correct.

Finally, check the length. With the Word & Character Counter, you can see the character count with and without spaces, the word count and the line count at once. If a post or application has a length limit, check here that you haven't gone over.

The order of checks before publishing

1. 1

   Leave it overnight, or for at least 30 minutes

   Memory fills in gaps most strongly right after writing. Just leaving time changes how many typos you find.

2. 2

   Go through it by sound

   Listen to the end with text-to-speech and note what catches your ear. You'll pick up nearly all problems with sentence length and rhythm here.

3. 3

   Check by eye, one thing at a time

   Look at numbers, proper nouns, inconsistent spellings and links separately. Trying to watch for everything at once lowers accuracy.

4. 4

   Check length and layout

   Finish by tidying the character count, heading levels and consistency of bullet marks.

FAQ

Which is better for proofreading: reading aloud myself or text-to-speech?

Reading aloud yourself also works, but it has a weak point: you unconsciously correct as you read. If a word is missing, you fill it in yourself. A synthetic voice reads exactly what's written, so gaps and extra letters come straight through as something that sounds wrong. It's also usable where you can't speak aloud.

How should I handle long text?

You can enter up to 2,000 characters at once. Split it at headings or chapter breaks and have each block read in turn. Splitting also makes it easier to record where something caught your ear. To check the overall flow, separately check only how the end of each block connects to the start of the next.

A word was pronounced wrong. Does that mean it's a typo?

Not necessarily. Synthetic voices guess pronunciation from context, so they can misread proper nouns and numbers. However, if a sentence is read with odd breaks, that's also a sign that its structure is hard to parse, so it's worth reviewing the comma placement and the sentence length.

Is the text I paste sent anywhere?

Reading aloud is handled by the speech engine on your device, and the text you enter isn't sent to a server. On a shared computer or any device others use, though, clear the text from the input box before you step away.