PROOFREADING AND

EDITING MARKS AND

SYMBOLS
I like playing foot ball.
 You shouldn’t not have
brought me a gift. Thank
you!
Her speech made me
Sad.
kyla baked me a pie.
Close Up Space
◦horizontal pair of
parentheses to correct
unequally wide spaces or
double spaces.
Close Up Space
Delete Mark or Take Something Out
◦The delete symbol is one of the most
commonly used proofreading marks.
◦ Draw this quick loop over a text if
you want the writer to remove a word.
Delete Mark or Take Something Out
New Paragraph
◦ a paragraph editing symbol that means
you should begin a new paragraph.
You’ll usually find this new paragraph
mark in dialogue exchanges in stories
or when the writer introduces a new
idea in their essay.
New Paragraph
Move Left
◦ move the text to the left.
◦ represented by a bracket
( [ ).
Move Left
Move Right
◦represented by a closing bracket ( ] )
◦ move the text to the right.
◦ help make the pages of your content
more organized and orderly.
Move Right
Insert
◦ caret (^) - a symbol that you need
to insert any word or element the
proofreader suggests.
Insert
Set in Lowercase
◦ “lc” encircled is the editing
symbol for lowercase.
Set in Lowercase
Change to Capital Letter
◦ Use this proofreading symbol if a
word should start with a capital
letter instead of lowercase letters.
Change to Capital Letter
Align Horizontally
◦ This proofreading symbol uses two
horizontal lines on top of each other to
look like an equal sign.
◦ Use this symbol to let the author
know that the text is not horizontally
aligned.
Align Horizontally
Align Vertically
◦The symbol for aligning the text
vertically is the same as the
previous one, except the lines are
standing up.
Align Vertically
Add Space
◦The number sign means you must add
space between the two words. Whether
it’s punctuation errors or word changes,
this symbol is often used.
◦ Some proofreaders use this symbol
without encircling the number sign.
Add Space
Insert en Dash
◦Use the en dash to denote ranges of
dates, distance, destinations, and more.
◦You may also use the en dash to make
complex compound adjectives look
clearer.
◦I’ll be in the meeting from 9 – 11
a.m.
◦The Chicago-New York route
◦The Nobel Prize-winning writer
◦It was a state university-private
school rivalry.
Insert en Dash
Insert em Dash
◦ the em dash is the most extended dash,
which can replace parentheses, colons,
and commas. This is a common editing
mark and has several uses, but its
primary purpose is to separate clauses
and huge parts of the sentence.
Example:
◦Multiple languages are spoken in
Canada—English, French, and Native
languages.
◦Four composers—Bach, Mozart,
Beethoven, and Brahms—make up the
bulk of the orchestra’s programming.
Insert em Dash