English & readingGrades 6–1230 cardsFact-checked
Proofreading & Editing Marks Flashcards
The US proofreaders’ marks set out in the Chicago Manual of Style, each described in words rather than drawn, with the instruction it gives a typesetter.
Free to play in your browser — no account, no install. All 30 cards are free forever — the deck is shorter than the free 30. The deck opens with A looped, curled symbol (the dele) struck through a letter or word, Two arcs facing each other, one above and one below a gap, The delete loop with close-up arcs round it, inside a word and The word 'stet' written in the margin beside marked-up text and runs to 30 cards in all.
Flip freely. Nothing is scored — go round as many times as you like.
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Proofreading & Editing Marks flashcards — the free 30
Every question and answer on the free cards, written out. Check them against your own textbook before you spend anything.
- A looped, curled symbol (the dele) struck through a letter or word
- Delete it — take the marked text out.
- Two arcs facing each other, one above and one below a gap
- Close up — delete the space and run the characters together.
- The delete loop with close-up arcs round it, inside a word
- Delete and close up — remove the letters and leave no gap; used inside a word only.
- The word 'stet' written in the margin beside marked-up text
- Let it stand — ignore the correction; the original wording stays.
- A hash sign, #, written in the margin
- Insert a space at the mark.
- 'eq #' written in the margin
- Equalise the spacing — make the spaces between the words, or between the lines, even.
- A wedge or arrowhead (a caret) pointing up from the baseline
- Insert here — add the word, letter or mark written above it or in the margin.
- A pilcrow, the paragraph sign, marked at a point in the text
- Begin a new paragraph here.
- 'no paragraph' or 'run in' written in the margin
- Do not start a new paragraph — run the text on from the line before.
- 'tr' in the margin with an S-shaped loop drawn round two words
- Transpose — swap the two marked words or letters.
- 'sp' in the margin beside a circled abbreviation or numeral
- Spell it out — write the abbreviation or figure in full.
- A left square bracket drawn in the margin beside a line
- Move the line left.
- A right square bracket drawn in the margin beside a line
- Move the line right.
- A right bracket then a left bracket, drawn round a line
- Centre the line.
- A double vertical rule drawn in the margin
- Align vertically — line the figures or characters up in one column.
- 'fl' or 'fr' written in the margin
- Set the line flush left, or flush right, against that margin.
- Three lines drawn under a letter, with 'caps' in the margin
- Capitalise it — set the marked letter or word in capitals.
- Two straight lines drawn under a word, with 'sc' in the margin
- Set it in small capitals.
- One straight line drawn under a word, with 'ital' in the margin
- Set it in italic type.
- A wavy line drawn under a word, with 'bf' in the margin
- Set it in boldface.
- 'rom' circled in the margin beside italic text
- Set it in roman — upright type, not italic.
- A slash struck through a capital letter, with 'lc' in the margin
- Lowercase it — set the marked capital as a small letter.
- 'wf' circled in the margin beside a character
- Wrong font — reset that character in the correct typeface.
- An upside-down caret written above the line
- Set what follows as a superscript.
- A caret written below the line
- Set what follows as a subscript.
- A dot drawn inside a small ring
- Insert a full stop (period) at that point.
- How an inserted comma, colon or question mark is marked
- In a caret or with a following stroke — not ringed: a ring means an instruction, not type to set.
- A capital M with a line under it, written in the margin
- Insert an em dash there.
- A capital N with a line under it, written in the margin
- Insert an en dash there.
- Where a proofreader's mark goes: in the text, in the margin, or both?
- Both — an in-text mark plus a margin mark. BS 5261 allows no words or abbreviations as margin marks.
Proofreading & Editing Marks flashcards — questions people ask
- How many cards are in the Proofreading & Editing Marks flashcard deck?
- The Proofreading & Editing Marks deck on PuzzlePage has 30 cards, and all 30 are free to play and free to download with no account and no payment. 30 cards. Proofreading marks are not a standardised set, so this deck sticks to one convention — the operational, typographical and function signs of the Chicago Manual list — rather than padding it with marks from other traditions.
- What is on the proofreading & editing marks flashcards?
- The US proofreaders’ marks set out in the Chicago Manual of Style, each described in words rather than drawn, with the instruction it gives a typesetter. Cards look like this: A looped, curled symbol (the dele) struck through a letter or word → Delete it — take the marked text out.; Two arcs facing each other, one above and one below a gap → Close up — delete the space and run the characters together.. The deck is written for grades 6–12 and filed under english & reading.
- Can I study proofreading & editing marks flashcards online for free?
- Yes. All 30 cards of the Proofreading & Editing Marks deck play free in any web browser at puzzlepage.app, with no account, no app and no card details. It works on a phone, tablet, Chromebook, laptop or classroom projector. Practice mode flips through the cards with nothing scored; quiz mode makes you answer each card before it flips, times the run and scores it.
- Are the proofreading & editing marks flashcards accurate?
- Every card in the Proofreading & Editing Marks deck cites two independent published sources — two different organisations, not a standards body and a site reprinting it — and a script checks that, rather than taking the writer's word for it. A second specialist then re-verified the deck against sources of their own, without reading the citations first. That is the difference from a user-generated flashcard site, where the cards are whatever a stranger typed and nobody is accountable for them.
- Can I print the proofreading & editing marks flashcards?
- Yes. The Proofreading & Editing Marks cards are available as a printable double-sided PDF to cut up, as well as playable in the browser. The whole 30-card printable is free to download, with no account.
- How should I use the Proofreading & Editing Marks deck to revise?
- Start in practice mode and go through the Proofreading & Editing Marks deck once without scoring, to find out which cards you already know — the deck is dealt in a different order every time you open it, so you are recalling the card rather than its position. Then switch to quiz mode, which times and scores the run and lets you re-run only the cards you missed. Use the "flip deck" control to swap which side is the question: recognising an answer is much easier than producing one, so a deck you find easy one way round is usually the harder and more useful drill the other way. Two or three short sessions across a week beat one long one, which is the whole reason flashcards work.
- What grade level are the proofreading & editing marks flashcards for?
- The Proofreading & Editing Marks deck is written for grades 6–12. Because the cards are plain term-and-answer pairs, they are also used outside that band — by adults revising english & reading, and by teachers running them as a whole-class starter on a projector.
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