Steven desJardins (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} stevendj) wrote,@ 2007-12-27 08:06:00 |
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Undistributed Proofreading
I decided to do one project solo, without putting it through Distributed Proofreaders. It was a short book, and I thought it would be a good experience.
Biggest problem: the tools assume that the book's been stitched together from DP from individual page files. Starting with a single text file means that there are no page markers to work with, which means the program can't associate the scans of each page with the associated text. Makes it harder to double-check things. I'd definitely want to come up with a work-around before doing this again.
As for the proofreading itself, I think the accuracy is probably pretty good. I read through the text file once, then ran the spell-checker and various automated tests, and found about a dozen typos I'd missed on the first pass (including obvious ones like "flre" for "fire"). That's more than I'd like to have missed, but not so many that I'm seriously concerned.
Still, it can use another pass to try to catch more errors. It'll probably be a few days before I can upload it, anyway, since somebody has to check that it's in the public domain before Project Gutenberg will accept it. (It was published in 1878, so there's no real question, but they usually only review the copyright clearances about once a week.) So I'll wait to get the clearance, then read through it one more time. In the meantime, if you want to take a look, I've put The Forest King; or, The Wild Hunter of the Adaca, by Hervey Keyes, up on my website.
I decided to do one project solo, without putting it through Distributed Proofreaders. It was a short book, and I thought it would be a good experience.
Biggest problem: the tools assume that the book's been stitched together from DP from individual page files. Starting with a single text file means that there are no page markers to work with, which means the program can't associate the scans of each page with the associated text. Makes it harder to double-check things. I'd definitely want to come up with a work-around before doing this again.
As for the proofreading itself, I think the accuracy is probably pretty good. I read through the text file once, then ran the spell-checker and various automated tests, and found about a dozen typos I'd missed on the first pass (including obvious ones like "flre" for "fire"). That's more than I'd like to have missed, but not so many that I'm seriously concerned.
Still, it can use another pass to try to catch more errors. It'll probably be a few days before I can upload it, anyway, since somebody has to check that it's in the public domain before Project Gutenberg will accept it. (It was published in 1878, so there's no real question, but they usually only review the copyright clearances about once a week.) So I'll wait to get the clearance, then read through it one more time. In the meantime, if you want to take a look, I've put The Forest King; or, The Wild Hunter of the Adaca, by Hervey Keyes, up on my website.
