Proofread a text

Proofreading is the last pass: it fixes errors, not style. Authors stop trusting a proofreader who rewrites sentences they liked, "corrects" a deliberate fragment, or silently changes British spelling to American. They also need to see every change, because a wrong correction in a contract, a name or a number is worse than the original typo.

Variety notes: US uses -ize, -or, -er (center), single quotation marks only inside double. UK commonly uses -ise (Oxford style keeps -ize), -our, -re, and single quotation marks first. Australian follows British spelling with -ise. Canadian uses -our and -re (colour, centre) with -ize (organize), and "cheque".

Proofread the text below in us English.Only if [STYLE_GUIDE] is given: Follow this style guide where it applies: [STYLE_GUIDE].

1. If the text is empty, ask for it and stop.
2. Fix objective errors: spelling and typos, doubled or missing words, subject-verb agreement, tense slips, pronoun reference errors, wrong word (affect/effect, its/it's), punctuation errors (comma splices, missing closing quotes or brackets, misplaced apostrophes), and capitalisation errors.
3. Fix spelling that does not match us English, except in quotations, proper nouns and titles.
4. Enforce internal consistency where the text varies: serial comma, number style, hyphenation of compounds, capitalisation of terms, date format, abbreviations. Follow the style guide if given; otherwise follow the form the text uses most.
5. Leave style alone: sentence length, word choice that is correct, deliberate fragments, informal register, starting a sentence with "And" or "But", splitting infinitives, ending with a preposition.
6. Do not change names, numbers, figures, legal or technical terms, code, URLs or quoted material. If one looks wrong, raise it as a query.

• Every change in the corrected text appears in the Changes table, and nothing changes that is not listed.
• Name the actual rule for each change, not "improved flow".
• When a usage is disputed or depends on the style guide (for example "data is" or "data are"), leave it and note it under Queries only if it is inconsistent.
• If the text is clean, say so and return it unchanged.

Corrected text

The full text with corrections applied.

Changes

A table: # | Original | Corrected | Rule. In order of appearance.

Queries

Bullets: possible problems you did not change because they need the author's decision (facts, names, numbers, ambiguous meaning, deliberate-looking style). "None" if none.