# Editing and Proofreading Masterclass | Dominate Writing, Punctuation & Grammar - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/editing-and-proofreading-masterclass-dominate-writing-punctuation-and-grammar/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Writing · Solid intro · Rated 5 /10 # Editing and Proofreading Masterclass | Dominate Writing, Punctuation & Grammar By Gareth B. Davies · Updated July 2026 Nitay L · Proofreader & Translator Beginner · 228 min A cheap, chatty crash course in punctuation rules and freelance proofreading logistics, not a polished skill-building program. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fediting-and-proofreading-masterclass-dominate-writing-punctuation-and-grammar%2F2069988097) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## What the course actually covers This is really two short courses stitched together, proofreading first, editing second, both aimed at someone who has never done either professionally. The proofreading half opens with pricing and niches (print media, translation, academic, web) before working through a punctuation checklist: colons, semicolons, full stops, commas in two parts, hyphens and dashes, apostrophes, slashes, and quotation marks. Each punctuation lesson pairs a short explanation with a follow-up practice activity pulled from a shared resources file. The editing half repeats the same pattern with its own niches (book, academic, web editing), a rundown of six editing types (copy, developmental, line, evaluation, proofreading, and the standard checklist), then moves into story craft: plot mapping, dialogue, and show-don't-tell. The course closes with a guide to finding freelance work, centered heavily on Upwork, including how hourly billing, connects, and service fees work on that platform. The structure is genuinely sensible on paper. It moves from fundamentals to a detailed checklist to applied story editing to monetization, and the lesson lengths are short enough to work through in a sitting per section. The problem is execution rather than architecture. ## Where it succeeds The punctuation lessons are the strongest material here. Explanations of when a comma introduces a quote versus when it should be dropped for a blended quotation, or the difference between apostrophe placement for shared versus individual possession, are concrete and correctly explained. The plot-mapping method, tracking how a story enters and exits each chapter to catch unresolved threads, is a usable technique that a beginner editor could apply immediately. The Upwork walkthrough is unusually specific about mechanics that many freelancing guides skip: how the 20 percent fee drops to 10 percent after 500 dollars with one client, how hourly tracking uses automatic screenshots, and how fixed-price jobs require client approval while hourly ones do not. ## Where it falls short The delivery is rough. Sentences frequently run on with garbled phrasing that makes the instructor's point harder to extract than it should be for a beginner-level course, and the same explanations of proofreading versus editing versus copy editing get repeated almost verbatim across both halves of the course, padding runtime rather than deepening understanding. Production quality also lags behind the content itself, with narration that sounds unpolished throughout. The show-don't-tell and dialogue lessons toward the end are reasonable but generic, the kind of writing advice available in any introductory creative writing resource, and they sit oddly in a course marketed around proofreading and grammar rather than fiction craft. Anyone hoping for deep grammar instruction beyond punctuation basics, such as subject-verb agreement nuances or advanced syntax repair, will not find much here. At 228 minutes for two combined courses, the pacing is brisk, which suits a true beginner testing the waters but leaves little room for the kind of repetition or worked examples that make a rule stick. Treat it as an orientation to the field and its freelance mechanics rather than a route to fluency in the punctuation rules themselves. The standout The lesson on proofreading translations, which covers checking message preservation between source and translated text, a check most general proofreading courses never address. ## What you will learn - · Distinguish proofreading, copy editing, developmental editing, and line editing by scope and price - · Apply punctuation rules for colons, semicolons, commas, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes, slashes, and quotation marks - · Use Microsoft Word's Track Changes, comments, and a macro to find and replace multiple terms at once - · Use standard proofreading symbols for marking up printed pages - · Set entry-level freelance rates and find proofreading and editing jobs on Upwork and similar sites - · Apply story-editing checks for plot holes, dialogue, pacing, and show-don't-tell technique Best for: A complete beginner who wants a plain-language map of proofreading and editing terminology plus a nudge toward freelancing on Upwork. Skip it if: Anyone who already knows basic grammar and punctuation, or wants a polished, professionally produced course free of rough narration and repeated filler phrasing. Helpful Examples Organization of Lessons Clarity of Instruction Actionable Steps [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fediting-and-proofreading-masterclass-dominate-writing-punctuation-and-grammar%2F2069988097)