Proofread documents, records, or other files to ensure accuracy
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 17 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards (4.A.2.a.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 17 occupations that perform it.
- Prepare or review reports, manuscripts, or meeting presentations.
- Review environmental, historical, or technical reports and publications for accuracy.
- Review documents written by others.
- Review manuscripts for professional journals.
- Review manuscripts for publication in professional journals.
- Proofread transcripts for correct spelling of words.
- Perform various data entry or word processing tasks, such as updating phone directories, typing or proofreading documents, or creating schedules.
- Perform clerical duties such as typing, proofreading, and sorting mail.
- Review correspondence for format and typographical accuracy, assemble the information into a prescribed form with the correct number of copies, and submit it to an authorized official for signature.
- Perform general office duties, such as taking or transcribing dictation, typing or proofreading correspondence, distributing or filing official forms, or scheduling appointments.
- Perform administrative support tasks, such as proofreading, transcribing handwritten information, or operating calculators or computers to work with pay records, invoices, balance sheets, or other documents.
- Prepare, proofread, or process legal documents, such as summonses, subpoenas, complaints, appeals, motions, or pretrial agreements.
- Review work done by others to check for correct spelling and grammar, ensure that company format policies are followed, and recommend revisions.
- Check completed work for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and format.
- Check preliminary and final proofs for errors and make necessary corrections.
- Compute, record, and proofread data and other information, such as records or reports.
- Correct or record omissions, errors, or inconsistencies found.
- Type, format, proofread, and edit correspondence and other documents, from notes or dictating machines, using computers or typewriters.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
17 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Correspondence Clerks
- Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
- Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
- Desktop Publishers
- Economists
- Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary
- English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers
- Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
- Molecular and Cellular Biologists
- Office Clerks, General
- Proofreaders and Copy Markers
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
- Telephone Operators
- Word Processors and Typists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Examine materials or documentation for accuracy or compliance”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.