Before engaging the skills of a professional service, it’s important to understand which of those skills you need and the differences between them. Proofreading services typically focus on grammar, spelling, punctuation and other basic writing mechanics. A proofreading service finds mistakes your word processing software may miss—like using a homophone instead of the correct word.
Editing services focus more on style and flow, the aesthetic features of the writing, rather than its mechanics. For example, editing services will watch for redundancy, confusing phrases, and generally try to improve the overall readability of the essay while preserving the content. They don’t seek out mistakes per sec, but look increase the overall quality of the writing. Many editing services offer proofreading in tandem, but proofreading services area also available without editing.
It’s a proven fact that people have a harder time proofreading their own writing. That’s because as you read, your brain is “predicting” what you’ll see based upon the memory of writing it. Of course, it doesn’t “predict” mistakes, so often you skip past them without noticing. When you read someone else’s writing, on the other hand, their errors are often extremely noticeable. A professional service can catch more errors than you can while reading your own work.
The reasons for using a third party service for editing are similar. When writing your own thoughts, they may seem clear and seem to flow well, largely because your writing is compatible with your own thought patterns. However, things that “work” in your own head might not work as well for a general audience. Professional editors are especially trained to improve writing with certain targeted audiences in mind, something that is very difficult for most casual or student writers to accomplish on their own.