Editing

How smoke testing applies to proofreading and editing

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I’ve been learning about quality assurance testing for software. Although I don’t have a tech background, I am interested in the methodical and organised approach taken in software QA.

Every field of work has words that are unfamiliar to outsiders. Software QA is no different. I’ve learnt several new software QA terms recently, including “smoke testing.”

The term originates from hardware engineering. If they turned on a new machine and smoke came out, it clearly wasn’t working. Any further quality tests would be a waste of time and resources. The machine was sent to be fixed and QA was postponed.

In software QA, a smoke test checks whether the software works on its most essential level. Let’s say a QA is smoke testing a new shopping website. They check the following areas:

  • Does log in work?
  • Does product search work?
  • Can users put products in the basket?
  • Can users arrange delivery?
  • Can users pay?
  • Can users log out?

If an early stage in the customer journey doesn’t work, there’s no point in QA testing the later stages. Not being able to log in is the equivalent of smoke pouring out of the website. The smoke test approach avoids wasting money on unnecessary quality assurance testing.

I’ve been thinking about how smoke testing applies to proofreading and copyediting.

When I receive a document or publication, I check whether it has all its pages and whether a significant amount of content appears to be missing. I also have a quick look for anything else that might have gone wrong, such as corrupted text. People do sometimes send in the wrong file or file version without realising it.

If I spot an obvious problem right from the start, I ask the client to check that they’ve sent the correct document before I carry on with my QA. I suppose this is as close as I get to a smoke test.

Something similar but different happens in fiction editing for indie authors. There are specialist editors for each stage in the story-writing process. If an editor thinks that it is too soon for a story to be sent to them, they let the author know. This protects the author from wasting money on inappropriate QA. Fiction editors are in an unusual position because their “smoke test” involves evaluating how well developed the content of a story actually is.

I work on written materials such as courses, business communications, and magazines. My smoke test focuses on obvious errors in production (e.g. incomplete, corrupted, or unexpected material).

I don’t look at how well developed the content is.

For example, I wouldn’t turn to the creator of a British English course and say, “I can’t proofread this. Your course is underdeveloped because you focus on just one accent.” The creator’s content choices would be none of my business.

A software QA for a shopping website would be in a similar position. Their thoughts about the product range are irrelevant to their work. Their job is to check whether the website does what it was designed to do for the customer.

I’m looking forward to learning more about software QA. I wonder what other parallels I’ll see with my own work.

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

What kind of fact-checking does a QA proofreader do?

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I’m a quality assurance proofreader. I carry out some fact-checking when requested, but I’m not like the fact-checkers who work in journalism. Whereas they often check every fact in a story, my fact-checking focuses on specific details that affect the reliability of a text.

My recent fact-checking experience includes checking:

  • personal details in a document against personal details in other documents to make sure they match
  • prices in a document against prices listed in official sources and making sure that the supplier is listed
  • photograph captions against a master list of photographs in another client document
  • the presentation of company names in a text against the official presentation of those names online

This kind of fact-checking is closely related to cross-checking details within documents. When cross-checking, I would pick up that a company was called Smith Ltd on page one but Smythe Ltd on page two.

What fact-checking means in journalism

Fact-checkers in journalism often work on a much bigger scale. Imagine a politician who claims that a million people came to a public square to hear them speak. Journalistic fact-checkers would test the claim by looking at social media images from the event (and weeding out AI fabrications). Additionally, they look at maps to see if it’s possible for the public square to contain such a large crowd.

As a QA proofreader, it’s not my place to check those kinds of claims. I work on documents that are almost ready to go out into the world. I only carry out formal fact-checking when the client asks me to.

Grey areas around fact-checking in QA proofreading

There is a grey area. From time to time, I spot factual errors without having to look them up. I’m ethically bound to point these out without overstepping the boundaries of what I have been hired to do. After all, nobody wants to hire a plumber who goes about criticising their interior decor.

Let’s just say that a client believes that Henry Tudor, a 16th-century king of England, invented a time machine, travelled to 19th-century London, and carried out the Jack the Ripper murders. They write an article about it, which they then ask me to QA proofread. (This is a hypothetical client scenario. Nothing this fun has ever happened to me.)

It would not be my place to fact-check the big picture of my client’s argument or the historical correctness of it. If the science is wrong, becoming aware of it is not normally my responsibility. Especially if the client hasn’t asked me to fact-check their claims.

However, the text might contain minor factual issues that could plausibly be typing mistakes or production errors.

  • Tudor is a Scottish surname (it’s not, it’s Welsh)
  • Calais is in England (it was controlled by England, but it’s in France)
  • Henry VIII defeated Richard III (he didn’t, Henry VII did)

As these points touch on general knowledge and could arguably be slips of the pen caused by the writer’s tiredness, I would flag them up. They fall into the category of “production error,” which is very much in my scope as a QA proofreader.

If I noticed that the Henry VIII/Jack the Ripper murder victims were in the wrong order, I could respond by suggesting that the use of the wrong name might be a slip of the pen. This would give the writer an opportunity to investigate further without me being the plumber who criticised their curtains. I wouldn’t openly say to them that a major part of their argument appears to be wrong, as I would have to respect that the writer had not hired me as a developmental editor.

In this scenario, I would probably discover the writer’s mistake when checking the spelling of the murder victims’ names. This kind of “accidental fact-check” can happen surprisingly often.

The grey area and the QA proofreader’s job description

I mainly say this is a grey area because I can never guarantee that my general knowledge is good enough to pick up these kinds of mistakes. I never want to give clients the impression that I am the ultimate safety net for all things.

For example, if I were proofreading a specialist text about steam trains, I would make sure the client understands that I can’t identify the different engines in photographs and compare them with the captions. (A proofreader who has that kind of knowledge is a blessing to specialist publications about steam trains.) The text would need to be reviewed by a separate fact-checker and I could then cross-check and proofread it.

It’s also a grey area because this kind of fact-checking is rarely an official part of a QA proofreader’s job description. These kinds of factual slips of the pen can’t really be planned for by managers. They tend to occur because the person with primary responsibility for factual correctness (usually the writer) is working under pressures such as time constraints.

Proofreading, #StetChat, and consistency

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#StetChat is an organised hour-long chat session for editors on Bluesky. This week’s conversation was about using style sheets when editing. Using a style sheet helps the editor check consistency when working on longer texts. It’s a record of preferred spellings, punctuation choices, the use of capital letters, heading styles, aspects of the content, and more.

All kinds of things can go on a style sheet. For example, if you were editing a romance novel, you would write down the couple’s hair and eye colours, their ages, how long it takes to travel between their homes, their favourite foods, and so on. And you’d put their names on the style sheet too. This stops Allison and Charley morphing into Alison and Charlie part way through the book.

Many fiction editors share their style sheet with the author after the edit. It can then be used by anyone else checking the book. It also helps the author maintain consistency if they write a sequel or series.

I’m not a book editor, so I never have to produce anything as detailed as the fiction style sheets discussed in this week’s #StetChat. However, like fiction editors, I do check for consistency in the documents that I proofread or edit.

I often work for clients who produce a lot of documents and already have guidelines to support consistency.

They supply me with a document called a house style guide. Looking at this usually tells me whether the client wants British or American spellings, which dictionary they want me to use, what punctuation system they prefer, their policy on inclusive language, whether any words are forbidden, and much more. In some organisations the house style guide is combined with the brand guidelines.

The beauty of a house style guide is that everyone in an organisation can refer to it and follow its rules when creating or checking written material. The resulting consistency gives the impression that everyone is working together in a coordinated way. It helps to communicate to all stakeholders that the organisation is well managed and in tune with itself.

Of course, stakeholders may not be consciously aware of that consistency. I suspect it’s something that only becomes strikingly obvious when it’s not there. For example, imagine receiving a company report that mixes British and American vocabulary on the same page.

On social occasions, when people ask me about my work, they never mention consistency. Although it’s central to proofreading and editing, there seems to be little public awareness of it. I’m sure most jobs are only partially understood by the general public.

Social media events like #StetChat are really useful because they give professional editors and proofreaders a chance to talk about their work out in the open. This raises awareness of the details of what we do. I don’t know if other trades and professions have equivalents to #StetChat elsewhere on social media. It might be a good idea if they did.

Questions people often ask me about proofreading

  • Do you read novels all day? Some proofreaders specialise in fiction, but proofreaders work in a lot of other areas too. I’ve proofread many different things, including company reports, internal paperwork, educational materials, marketing content, and a magazine.
  • Is it your job to check spelling and grammar? We do check spelling and grammar, but we also look at consistency, clarity, and presentation. For example, a proofreader who specialises in board games will point out if the instructions are unclear or contain contradictions. I’ve had many jobs where I’ve looked at both content and language.
  • Are you here to judge the quality of my writing? When I first began proofreading and editing, I used to notice who wrote especially well and who didn’t. With experience, I saw so much writing that I stopped thinking about it in that way. To draw an analogy, we may worry about showing body parts to doctors and nurses. For them, our bodies are just an everyday part of their work.