Proofreading a Training Bulletin Draft
The following paragraph was drafted for a training bulletin and has not been proofread: "Offisers who recieve a complaint should seperate the parties before interviewing them. A liason with the property owner is neccessary when the incident occured on private property. It is the officer's descretion whether to issue a citation, but they must acknoledge the complainant's concerns, and they're supervisor must be notified before the shift ends. The principle reason for this step is to preserve a record that can be reviewed later."
1. List every misspelled word in the paragraph, give the correct spelling, and state the pattern or rule that explains the correction where one applies.
Read the worked answer
| As written | Correct | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Offisers | Officers | The /s/ sound is spelled c before e or i: of-fi-cer. |
| recieve | receive | i before e except after c: -ceive. |
| seperate | separate | There is a rat in separate - the second syllable is par, not per. |
| liason | liaison | Two is: li-ai-son. |
| neccessary | necessary | One c, two s: ne-ces-sa-ry. |
| occured | occurred | Double the final consonant before a suffix when the stress falls on the last syllable: oc-cur → oc-curred. |
| descretion | discretion | The prefix is dis-, not des-. |
| acknoledge | acknowledge | The word contains know: ac-know-ledge. |
Note that occurred and necessary are the two errors most likely to survive a spell-checker pass that a reader skims; both are worth a deliberate second look in any report.
2. Two of the errors in the paragraph are not spelling errors at all, but word-choice (usage) errors. Identify both, correct them, and explain the distinction between the two words in each pair.
Read the worked answer
1. "they're supervisor" → "their supervisor"
- They're = they are (contraction).
- Their = belonging to them (possessive).
- Test: substitute "they are." "They are supervisor must be notified" is nonsense, so the possessive is required.
2. "The principle reason" → "The principal reason"
- Principal as an adjective = main or primary.
- Principle as a noun = a rule or belief ("a principle of policing").
- Test: the word is modifying reason, so it is doing an adjective's job. Principle has no adjectival use.
Why the distinction matters here: both pairs are spelled correctly, so a spell-checker flags neither. Only a reader who tests the word's function in the sentence catches them - which is why homophone errors are the ones that escape proofreading most often.
3. Rewrite the paragraph cleanly, keeping every idea and the original order of points.
Read the worked answer
Officers who receive a complaint should separate the parties before interviewing them. A liaison with the property owner is necessary when the incident occurred on private property. It is the officer's discretion whether to issue a citation, but the officer must acknowledge the complainant's concerns, and their supervisor must be notified before the shift ends. The principal reason for this step is to preserve a record that can be reviewed later.
(Two further fixes were made beyond the required list: "the officer" replaces the ambiguous "they" so that one person is clearly the actor, and "their supervisor" follows from that. "One's" or "his or her" would also be acceptable.)