National Proofreading Day 2025 is on Saturday, March 8, 2025: Accredited Copy writing,proofreading,Journalist courses?

Saturday, March 8, 2025 is National Proofreading Day 2025. Helen Woodall: Freelance Editing: National Proofreading Day National Proofreading Day

To be a journalist, you have to do a course accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

There is a wide variety of these courses, at further education, undergraduate and postgraduate level. They vary quite a lot in quality - the best have a great success rate in getting students through the (very difficult) NCTJ exams and, more importantly, in getting students jobs in journalism

You can see a list of all the courses at

To get on any of the good courses you will need work experience - so this is the thing to sort out first if you're interested in this field.

Copywriting is a much less regulated field. Copywriters come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some will have done journalism training, others will have an advertising background, some Public Relations experience or qualifications, yet others will have come straight from university courses where they've done media studies - type degrees and have a flair for writing. Pay for junior copywriters is very low (even lower than journalists!) and it's quite difficult to get into or progress, unless you're especially talented, without a background in one of the above.

Contrary to the adverts in a lot of newspapers, there are, these days, very few jobs or even part-time work, for proof-readers. Proof reading is usually done as part of another job, such as that of a newspaper sub-editor

The only industry (I'm aware of) that does employ proof readers in any worthwhile number is book publishing. They will usually be looking for people who have done a degree in publishing or something closely related. For non-fiction they may accept someone who's an expert (usually above degree standard) in whatever subject the book's about.

Please don't waste your time and money on any of the courses for any of the above professions that are advertised regularly in the national newspapers. They aren't recognised by any industry body (only 'bodies' they've made up) and will happily take your money for little or no benefits.

Finding work in proofreading?

Very unlikely. There are a few good proof-readers who are in demand, but the demand is small, because most publishers these days think that computer spell-checks and grammar-checks are all they need. Those who get the work are already the experienced ones, and the ones who have some speciality, such as foreign languages.

If you are a qualified librarian, there may be vacancies at the British national Bibliography.

If you can develop some academic speciality, such as reading science texts, you may find a science publisher could use you. But otherwise. I strongly suggest you don't give up the day job.

Whatever you do, unless you have some enormous luck and some amazingly helpful friends in all the right places,you will definitely not make a full-time living from proof-reading.

[French] Please proofread these 8 short sentences futur simple?

1. "Tegan et Sara ira a les Grammys."

- Tegan and Sara are two persons (and you or the person you are talking to is not one of them), therefore you have to conjugate to the third person of plural : iront

- "a" is a form of the verb "avoir" (to have). "à" is the equivalent of "at" or "to".

- "à le" cannot exist in french. You have to make the mandatory contraction "au". "à les" must be "aux". In the same way "de le" doesn't exist and you have to say "du"

- So it's : "Tegan et Sara iront aux Grammys."

2. "Beyoncé travailla a McDonald's."

- "travailla" is the verb "travailler" conjugated in passé simple. Passé simple is a litterary tense and it's used to describe the past, not the future.

- the future for "travailler" in the third person of singular is "travaillera"

- As I said before, you have to use "à" instead of "a"

- You can keep "à McDonald's" but it's better to say "chez McDonald" or "chez macdo".

- So : "Beyoncé travaillera chez McDonald."

3. "James Franco chercha pour un donneur de sang."

- "Chercha" is passé simple. "Cherchera" is futur simple.

- "chercher pour" is a semi-litteral translation of "look for". The actual translation is just "chercher"

- So : "James Franco cherchera un donneur de sang."

4. "Mardi Gras sera un national vacance."

- "Vacance" is feminine.

- The order of the words should be "une vacance nationale" BUT, "vacance" in the singular form is not used. You can only use the plural form "vacances". It makes "des vacances nationales". But "vacances" are not used to describe a single national day off work. You have to say "jour ferié".

- So : "Mardi Gras sera un jour ferié."

5. "Washington D.C. forma un cult religieux."

- "forma" is passé simple. "formera" is futur simple.

- "culte" in french, means "religious worship". The equivalent of the the english negative meaning of "cult" is "secte".

- So, if you mean "religious worship" : "Washington D.C. formera un culte religieux."

- If you use the negative meaning of "cult" : "Washington D.C. formera une secte."

6. "Zimbabwe sera la plus peuplee pays en Afrique."

- You have to put an article before the name of a country.

- Zimbabwe is masculine in french and is written "Zimbabwé"

- You forgot an acute accent in "peuplée" but it doesn't matter because "pays" is masculine and you should write "peuplé".

- The order of word should be "sera le pays le plus peuplé"

- It's better to use "d'Afrique" instead of "en Afrique"

- So : "Le Zimbabwé sera le pays le plus peuplé d'Afrique."

7. "Jennifer Lawrence habita a Nigeria."

- "habita" is passé simple. "habitera" is futur simple.

- You forgot the article before the country again. It's "le ***éria" and "à le" becomes "au". So it's "au ***éria".

- So : "Jennifer Lawrence habitera au ***éria."

8. "Ray Rice aura une femme nouvelle."

- You're almost right. The order of words should be : "Ray Rice aura une nouvelle femme."

Here is an article about passé simple :

Here is one about futur simple :

Here is one about the placement of adjectives :

Here is one about à :

Here is one about the mandatory contractions :

Edit : I don't know why Yahoo censor the word Nigeria written in french but not in english. It usually does not censor french curses and this is not a curse so I'm a little puzzled. Nigeria in french is written with an accute accent on the e.