Print vs. Computer Screen:Effects of Mediumon Proofreading AccuracyPATTY WHARTON-MICHAEL

This study was designed to examine whether the medium by which informationis presented would influence participants' proofreading accuracy. A general lin-ear model ANCOVA was conducted to examine participants' ability to detectproofreading errors presented in printed text compared to errors detected intext presented on computer screens. The results suggest that the medium bywhich information is presented could influence participants' proofreadingaccuracy, and that the participants' familiarity with the topic ofthe text mayhinder their ability to concentrate on the proofreading task.

A number of studies have indicat-ed that textual errors in newspaperscan decrease the perceived credibilityofthe papers. A recent survey reportedthat 35% ofthe public found mistakesin the newspaper more than once aweek. "Each misspelled word, badapostrophe, garbled grammatical con-struction, weird cutline and misla-beled map erodes public confidence ina newspaper's ability to get anythingright. "̂ Haiman examined several re-cent studies and concluded that thepublic is increasingly skeptical regard-ing newspapers' credibility because ofthe amount of both factual and gram-matical errors found. Factual errorsand spelling and grammar errors are

observed in both print and onlinenews stories.2 However, it remainsunclear whether such errors are duesolely to deadline pressures or ifproofreading on computers is moredifficult. If the medium carrying theinformation affects the detection oferrors, there are implications for news-room personnel and for the traininguniversities provide to students whoexpect to enter the newsroom.

Mediumand Proofreading

Proofreading accuracy is deñnedas the ability to detect errors in a giventext. The study of the effects of medi-

Patty Wharton-Michael (WHARTON@PITT.EDU] is assistant professor. Department of Com-munication, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 2 8

um on proofreading accuracy beganmore than twenty years ago, with thecomparison of text editing on VisualDisplay Units (VDU) to paper-basedtext editing. With technological devel-opments, the medium has evolved toinclude online presentations.

Proofreading Accuracy. Wrightand Lickorish conducted one of thefirst studies comparing VDU and papertext for proofreading accuracy. Theirprimary concern was the way in whichthe text was annotated to indicateerrors. Three conditions were used:proofreading and annotation on paper,proofreading and annotation on screen,and proofreading on screen and anno-tation on paper. The first group partic-ipated in the proofreading on screenand annotation on paper condition.The second group participated in theproofreading and annotation on screencondition. Both groups participated inthe proofreading and annotation onpaper condition. Subjects read fourstories, each approximately six pageslong, with 134 lines, and thirty-nineerrors. Eour types of errors were used:misspelled words, omitted words,repeated words, and typing errors.

Wright and Lickorish found no sig-nificant difference in proofreadingaccuracy between the VDU and papertext conditions, and reported that ittook subjects longer to proofread onthe screen than on paper. However,they indicated that the results mighthave been affected by the difference inerror notations between the conditions.For example, in the VDU condition,errors were indicated by keyboardinsertion in the right-hand marginbeside the text, whereas in the papercondition, errors were indicated bywriting on a piece of paper the linenumber and type of mistake found.

Errors in this study were indicated in anonStandard fashion. If a spelling errorwas found, subjects were instructed tomark it with an "S." An exclamationpoint (!) was used to indicate thatwords had been omitted. A questionmark (?) was used to indicate any errorthe subject did not otherwise knowhow to mfirk.̂

Initial research did not show sig-nificant effects between medium andproofreading accuracy.* However, sev-eral later studies reported conflictingresults. Wilkinson and Robinshawcompared VDU edits and paper textedits for proofreading accuracy. Notingthe increasingly widespread use ofword processing, they wanted to knowwhether editing text on paper, ratherthan working directly on a VDUscreen, would produce more accurateproofreading. They tested for accuracy,fatigue, and speed. Subjects were splitinto two groups, and each group partic-ipated in five one-hour sessions acrossa five-day period. The first day consist-ed of instructions and a practice test,and the remaining four days were ded-icated to proofreading tests. Each of thetwo groups experienced both the VDUand paper conditions twice. Subjectsrecorded proofreading errors in bothconditions by speaking into a micro-phone. Contrary to Wright and Lick-orish's findings, Wilkinson and Robin-shaw's found a significant differencebetween the VDU and paper condi-tions. Participants in the VDU condi-tion detected fewer proofreadingerrors, read fewer pages, and experi-enced greater fatigue throughout theexperiment than participants editing inthe paper condition. The researchersargued that participants' fatigue in thecomputer condition contributed todecreased ability to detect errors. They

29 SPRING '08

noted that as the experiment pro-gressed, a "speed/accuracy trade off"apparently emerged. Participants in thecomputer condition appeared to beaffected hy fatigue. They missed moreerrors as the experiment advanced, huttheir reading time for the material wasincreasing.^ This left the researchersquestioning whether it was simplyfatigue affecting participants or if theparticipants were trading accuracy forspeed.^

Speed. Among the research exam-ining proofreading accuracy amongmedia, the majority of studies noted areduction in speed for participants whoread from computer screens/ Gould andGrischkowsky conducted several stud-ies in an attempt to discover what vari-ahles could explain the difference inreading speed.^ Oliver summarized thevariahles and their definition as fol-lows:

• Text Orientation: Paper tends tohe oriented in a vertical form with thepage narrower than it is deep, whereasa screen is usually wider than deep.

• Visual Angle: The screen's widthcreates a wider visual angle throughwhich the reader's eyes must pass.

• Reading Distance: People tend tosit further from the text when reading ascreen than when reading from paper.

• Display Quality: Gomputer mon-itors can vary in the quality of theimage that they produce with characterformation less defined and pronouncedthan paper characters.

• Display Gontrasts: The con-trast hetween the text and the hack-ground differs hetween paper and text.^

While no single variable wasfound to have a significant impact onproofreading, Gould and Grischkowskyspeculated that it was a comhination ofthe variahles that could affect proof-reading tasks. Even with the elimina-tion of some of these variables throughnew technology (e.g., display contrastand display quality), subjects tested inOliver's more recent research stillrequired more time to proofread text incomputer conditions than suhjects inprint conditions.

Error Type. The types of errorsdetected during proofreading taskshave also heen investigated. Greed etal. compared proofreading performanc-es across three different media: VDU,photograph, and print. They testedsubjects' ability to distinguish threedifferent types of error: visually simi-lar, visually dissimilar, and synthetic.Their results indicated that when par-ticipants proofread materials on theVDU, their scores were significantlylower than on paper. When partici-pants proofread from a photograph of aVDU screen, they displayed intermedi-ate performance. Visually similar errorsappeared to be harder to detect thanother error types. Greed, Dennis, andNewstead posited that one reason forthis finding might be the display font;the font could make distinguishing let-ters difficult."

Greed, Dennis, and Newstead con-tinued their investigation of mediumand proofreading accuracy by not onlyfocusing on error type, but also on theeffects of format on proofreading ahili-ty. Text materials were presented inthree conditions. In the first condition,text was displayed in full-page formatfor proofreading. In the second condi-tion, the text was shown one paragraphat a time, and in the third condition.

JOURNALISM 6- MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 30

the text was displayed one sentence ata time. Subjects who were given onesentence at a time to proof scored thehighest in accuracy, followed by theparagraph and full-screen condition.However, the speed with which thetasks were completed declined, andthe researchers suggested furtherinvestigation of the issue of speed. ̂ ^

In an extensive literature review ofempirical research examining the dif-ferences between reading from paperversus screen, Dillon summarized hothmeasures and outcomes from previousresearch. He listed five possihle out-come differences that have most com-monly been measured: speed, accuracy(most often measured by proofread-ing), fatigue, comprehension, and pref-erence. Among all five variahles therehave been conflicting results.^^ of thesummarized research, however, inves-tigators failed to consider what effectprior proofreading experience mayhave had on participants' ability to proof-read on computer screens or paper.

Proofreading Experience. Oliverattempted to investigate what impactprevious proofreading experiencemight have on participants' ahility toproofread between media. Participantsread eight pages of text on the comput-er and were asked to indicate errors hyusing their mouse and clicking. Thecomputer recorded their responses.Six weeks later, participants saw thesame stimulus material in print formatand circled any errors they detected.Each participant was asked to indicatehis or her previous computer-hasedproofreading experience, and wasplaced in either a high or low experi-ence group. The study revealed thatparticipants in the high proofreadingexperience group showed no signifi-cant difference between proofreading

in the computer and print conditions.However, participants with low proof-reading experience scored significant-ly higher in the print condition thanthe computer condition. Participantswith high experience found signifi-cantly more errors than those in thelow group. No matter what the stu-dents' prior proofreading experience,participants took more time to com-plete the computer task than the print.These findings suggest that previousexperience in computer-based proof-reading may help individuals over-come a possible medium difference inproofreading. The author pointed outthat a limitation to the study was thatparticipants were proofreading textthat wasn't their own, and becausethey didn't feel a sense of "owner-ship," they may not have examinedthe text carefully.^^ However, if this sit-uation were occurring, it would be tak-ing place in both of the conditions, andcould be factored out.

Research Question. This researchexamines differences in students' abil-ities to proofread from computers ver-sus printed materials. This study alsoexamines the effects that previousproofreading experience has on stu-dents' ahility to complete the proof-reading tasks. This research was there-fore designed to examine the followingresearch question:

RQl: For students, con-trolling for proofreading expe-rience, what is the relation-ship hetween medium andproofreading accuracy?

It is important to note that thisstudy examines the influence of medi-um on proofreading rather than oncopy editing. The higher level of

31 SPRING '08

knowledge and skill that is necessaryfor copy editing is acknowledged, andtherefore this study examines only stu-dents' proofreading abilities—a foun-dational skill obtained by journalismstudents.

Method

Subjects. Eighty-four undergradu-ate students from a large Northeasternuniversity participated in the study.They were awarded a nominal amountof extra credit in exchange for theirinvolvement. Nearly all participantswere communication majors (94%),with journalism majors accounting for73.8%. Sudents were told they wouldbe reading a short newspaper article,indicating any errors they might find,and filling out a questionnaire. Stu-dents were randomly assigned to one oftwo conditions. The first condition(N=42) was the paper condition, andthe second condition (Ar=42) was thecomputer condition.

Stimulus Material. Two sets ofstimulus materials were created for thisstudy. Both were short newspapers arti-cles, approximately 550 words, andeach contained seventeen errors withinthe text. The first article, with the head-line "Antismoking Group Sues toPreserve an Ad Campaign's Tone," dis-cussed a lawsuit attempting to protectan anti-smoking commercial that tobac-co companies were claiming waslibelous. The second article, "RecordLabels' Answer to Napster Still HasArtists Feeling Bypassed," covered thethen-ongoing copyright controversybetween musicians and Napster, anonline music trading network.

Stimulus materials were created tolook like authentic newspaper articles,and to look as similar as possible. An

equal number of each of the types oferrors were placed in the text (i.e.,punctuation, capitalization, misspelledwords, indented paragraphs, and dou-ble words), and each contained tenerrors on the first page and seven errorson the second page. The types of errorswere carefully selected to test students'actual proofreading abilities ratherthan their grammatical skills, although,granted, it is difficult to entirely sepa-rate the two. The stimulus material forboth the computer and print conditionswere identical, using the same fonttype, style, and size. Proofreading stim-ulus materials were pretested with stu-dents from the same campus, and mod-ified to ensure variance across themeasures.

Procedure. The experiment wasadministered to groups of participantsin a computer laboratory. Paper andcomputer sessions were conductedseparately during six different sections.The study was held two consecutiveevenings in the same room. Uponarrival, participants were welcomedand asked to give informed consent bysigning the forms furnished by theresearcher. They were told that theywould be reading a short new^spaperarticle and that if they found any errorsthey should mark them.

Students in both conditions wereasked to "make any changes that wereneeded," and they were not required touse proofreading marks/symbols. In thepaper condition, participants notederrors by making the corrections direct-ly on the paper. In the online condi-tion, students were asked to make cor-rections by using their keyboard andmouse to make changes on the screen.Students in the computer conditionwere informed that the Microsoft Wordtool "track changes" had been activat-

JouRNALiSM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 3 2

ed, and that any correction they madewould appear in red on the screen.Participants in both conditions wereinformed that they would have eightminutes to read and make correctionsto the newspaper article.

After completing the proofreadingtask, students in the print conditionwere asked to hand in their papers andfill out the questionnaire. Students inthe computer condition were asked toprint their papers (on which the "trackchanges" function had marked alledits), and to fill out the questionnaire.

Dependent Measure. This study'sdependent variable was proofreadingaccuracy. Proofreading accuracy wasmeasured by the number of errors par-ticipants detected, with possible scoresranging from 0 (no errors detected) to17 (all errors detected)." Therefore,the higher a participant's error detec-tion score, the better the participantperformed on the proofreading task.

Independent Measures. The inde-pendent measures in this study werecondition, story, editing experience,and error placement.^^ Students wererandomly placed in the computer con-dition or the print condition, and alsorandomly assigned the smoking storyor the Napster story within each con-dition. An editing experience scaleoperationalized participants' previousproofreading experience. This scalewas created using four measures.Students answered three self-reportquestions on a 7-point Likert scaleabout their proofreading experience oncomputers and paper, and about anycopy editing instruction they hadreceived. Students also reported thenumber of copy editing courses theyhad taken. An index of editing ex-perience was subsequently created byaveraging the standardized scores for

these four measures (Cronbach's alpha=.80).

Error placement was the variableused to examine the speed with whichstudents were able to complete theproofreading task. Error placement wasoperationalized by splitting the totalnumber of errors into two groups, thefirst eight errors and last eight errors.Therefore, if participants ran out oftime to complete the proofreadingtasks, their first errors score should behigher than their last errors score. Theoperationalization of error placementwas used to avoid simply counting lasterrors missed in case participants didnot have the ability to detect the errorsdue to error type.

Control Measures. A question-naire with twenty-seven items was ad-ministered after the proofreading task.Questions pertaining to peirticipants'previous proofreading experience andperceptions of the article as beinginformative, accurate, easy to read, andenjoyable were included as controlmeasures. The participants' percep-tions of the article being informative,accurate, and enjoyable were includedto lessen the possibility that the partic-ipants' liking of the story influencedtheir ability to focus on the task ofproofreading. The measure of how easythe article was to read was included toensure participants did not find thetext difficult to read, allowing addi-tional cognitive resources to focus onthe task of proofreading rather than oncomprehension of the text.

Results

A general linear model ANCOVAwas conducted to examine partici-pants' ability to detect proofreadingerrors.̂ "^ Error detection scores were

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Table 1ERROR DETECTION: CONDITION X STORY INTERACTION

Error Detection: Condition x Story Interaction_Condition_

StimulusNapster M

SE

Smoking MSE

F(l, 71)=5.25, p<.05.

Print

9-OlaA.57

10.54.B

.51

Computer

8-25.51

.55

Noie: Using Holm's sequential bonferroni post hoc comparisons within rows, means withno lowercase subscripts differ at p<.05; comparisons within columns, means with nouppercase subscript differ at p<.05.

analyzed with condition, stoTy, andediting experience employed as predic-tors, controlling for students' percep-tions of the article as being informative,accurate, easy to read, and enjoyable.As expected, the analysis revealed asignificant main effect for condition,with higher scores for participantsin the print condition {M=9.77, SE=.38)than those in the computer condi-tion (M=7.78, SE=.38), F(l,71)=13.26,p<.001.

However, this main effect for con-dition must be interpreted in light ofthe Condition x Story Interaction thatwas also obtained, F[l, 71)=5.25, p<.05.Table 1 shows the means associatedwith this interaction. The table illus-trates that while there was a significantdecrease in error detection acrossmediums, the Napster stimulus materi-al decrease between the computer andprint condition was not significant,whereas the smoking stimulus materialdecrease was significant.

An exploratory analysis was con-ducted to examine the issue of errorplacement. A 2 (Error Placement) x 2(Condition) x 2 (Story) mixed modelrepeated measures analysis of covari-ance, was conducted with error place-ment as a within-subjects factor, con-trolling for proofreading experience.

The analyses revealed a significantmain effect for errors missed due totime/speed f (1,79)=78.33, p<.001, withparticipants detecting a greater amountof first errors (M=5.21, SE=.12) incomparison to last errors (M=3.53,SE=.2O). However, this main effectshould be interpreted in light of a sig-nificant Story X Time/Speed interac-tion, F(l,7g)=4.79, p<.05. Table 2shows the means associated with thisinteraction, and illustrates that whileerror detection scores for the smokingstory decreased over the time of theproofreading task, this decrease wasnot as significant as the Napster storyscores decrease.

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 34

Table 2ERROR DETECTION: STORY X ERROR PLACEMENT INTERACTION

Error Detection: Story x Error Placement Interaction_Error Placement.

StimulusNapster M

SE

Smoking MSE

í'(l,79)=4.79, p<.05.

First Error

5.34„A.17

508eA.17

Last Error

3-2V.28

3.81bA.28

Note; Using Holm's sequential bonferroni post hoc comparisons within rows, means withno lowercase subscripts differ at p<.05; comparisons within columns, means with nouppercase subscript differ at p<.05.

Discussion

Again, this study was designed toexamine whether the medium bywhich information is presented wouldinfluence participants' proofreadingaccuracy. Medium had a significantmain effect on proofreading accuracy.These findings support hoth Wilkinsonand Robinshaw's and Creed, Dennis,and Newstead's research. The resultssuggest that students are justified inprinting out material to conduct a morethorough proofreading.

Although the error detectionacross media for both stories de-creased, it was significant only forthe smoking story. One explanationmight be that students were morefamiliar with the content of theNapster story than the smoking story.Napster is a subject that has gainedmuch attention on college campuses.Readers may have been too involvedwith the content of the article and were

not focused on the proofreading task.Students who read the smoking storymay not have been as familiar withthe topic, which allowed them to con-centrate on the proofreading task. Theextent to which participants are un-familiar with a given issue or topicmay force them to read more carefully,and will therefore enable them todetect more errors under the right con-ditions.

Within the print condition therewas a significant difference for errordetection between the smoking articleand Napster article, but no significantdifference was found between the twostimuli in the computer condition. Itis possible that students in the com-puter condition focused on proofread-ing for the smoking story, but the medi-um hindered their proofreading abili-ties.

This study also indicates thatprevious proofreading experience didnot affect participants' abilities to per-

35 SPRING '08

form proofreading tasks. The resultscontradict Oliver's findings. Again, hefound that participants with previouscomputer-based proofreading experi-ence revealed no significant differencein error detection between medium,whereas participants with little or noprevious proofreading experience diddiffer significantly in error detectionbetween conditions. One possibleexplanation could be that Oliver ope-rationalized previous proofreadingexperience hy using one self-reportmeasure of computer-based experi-ence.^'' This study used self-reportmeasures and the number of copyediting courses taken to create a scaleto measure previous copy editingexperience. The scale represents bothprint and computer proofreadingexperience, unlike Oliver's measure-ment.

Previous research has indicatedthat it takes more time to complete aproofreading task on a computer thanin print. The current study examinederror placement hy comparing the sumof the first eight scores to the sum ofthe last eight scores to determinewhether the participant ran out of timeto complete the task. Results indicatedthat participants detected more errorsat the beginning of the story than at theend of the story, regardless of medium.However, it cannot be concluded fromthese findings that speed was notaffected by the medium. It is possiblethat students skimmed the reading,detecting errors throughout the text. Inaddition, types of errors were not iden-tical between the first errors and thelast errors.

The results also indicated a signif-icant Story X Error Placement interac-tion. Participants reading the Napsterarticle showed a significantly greater

decrease in errors detected from thefirst eight errors to the last eight errorsthan did those reading the smokingarticle. Again, the familiarity of theNapster topic may have led partici-pants to attend less closely as they pro-ceeded, thereby missing more errors,whereas participants' unfamiliaritywith the smoking article may have ledthem to attend closely to all of thematerial.

Implications

These findings have strong im-plications for professional newsrooms.Proofreading on-screen instead of onpaper may be more efficient and moreecological for newsrooms, but if differ-ences exist between individuals' abili-ties to proofread on screen, news-rooms will need to adjust their actions.Although most newsrooms proofreadboth electronic and print copies, pro-fessionals in the field should questionhow efficient the use of computers is inthe editing process if fewer errors aredetected electronically. Several layersof additional checks for proofreadingerrors could be instituted.

This study also has implicationsfor universities that are training futurenewsroom professionals. The notionof "the more technology in the class-room the better" appears to be accept-ed among many faculty, yet littleempirical research validates such aclaim. Elementary, secondary, andhigher education educators are beingpressured to incorporate new tech-nologies into their curricula withoutknowing the effects. This study'sresults imply that institutions shouldbe cautious when incorporating com-puter-mediated technologies into class-rooms.

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 36

Limitations

While these findings are interest-ing, this study has several limita-tions. Subjects were communicationstudents from a large Northeastern uni-versity. This limits the external validi-ty of the research because the parti-cipants are students in training tobecome communication professionals.These findings cannot be generalizedto the larger professional field of jour-nalism.

Another external validity limita-tion was the short length of thenew^spaper articles. Although the briefstimulus materials were created toavoid potential problems with partici-pant fatigue, the findings cannot begeneralized to longer manuscripts thatstudents and newsroom personnel en-counter.

There were several potential inter-nal validity and/or reliability limita-tions. Students completed the proof-reading task in a laboratory setting.Participants' speed to complete a taskwas measured by the completion of thefirst eight errors and the last eighterrors. Participants could haveskimmed the stimulus materials tryingto catch errors, and the speed measure-ment (error placement) would haveindicated that they finished the articleif they detected any of the last eighterrors. The types of errors were notidentical between the first and lasterror groups.

Finally, the notation used to indi-cate errors and its effect on proofingscores may be important. But thisstudy did not have any measure thatretrieved feedback from participantsabout how comfortable they wereusing the directed means of annotationto indicate error.

Directionsfor Future Research

It is critical that further research isconducted to examine the effects ofprevious proofreading experience onerror detection among mass media.Research results conflict aboutwbether experience can help partici-pants increase proofreading accuracy.Researchers should consider botb com-puter- and paper-based experience andshould look at creating more accuratetools for measurements of previousproofreading experience. Future re-search could require participants tocomplete proofreading tasks on bothprint and electronic text so that previ-ous experience could be controlled as afactor. Using an experimental designthat requires participants to completean exercise in both conditions wouldalso provide a more accurate depictionof how journalism professionals typi-cally approach their work.

Future research should also con-sider using both brief and lengthy man-uscripts to examine whether mediumdifferences vary as a function of thelength of the manuscript. The time ittakes to complete the proofreading taskshould also be taken into consider-ation. Most research indicates thatproofreading on computer screen takesmore time than proofing on paper.^^ Toobtain accurate information regardingthe time/speed for completion of thetask, researchers may consider notincluding a time restriction and simplyrecord the time it takes each partici-pant to finish the task.

For this study, college studentswere used as subjects. Further exami-nation of proofreading differencesshould be conducted among journal-ism professionals. The previous proof-

37 SPRING '08

reading experience of the students inthis sample was measured by self-report measures and a count of howmany copy editing courses the studentshad taken. By sampling professionalsfor future research previous experiencecould he measured in number of years,and could possibly create a bettermethod of measurement for proofread-ing experience. Additionally, measure-ments could be created to look at copyediting abilities rather than simpleproofreading abilities.

The importance of the relation-ship between participants and theirfamiliarity with the content of articlesused for stimulus material should alsobe carefully examined. If participantsare familiar with the topics of the arti-cles or are personally affected by them,they may not focus on the proofreadingtask. Oliver discusses the notion of"ownership"; if participants have someform of attachment to an article, theymay take the task more seriously. ̂ ^Researchers should include measure-ments of how familiar, involved, orattached a participant might be towardan article topic, in order to control forthese effects.

Individuals' lack of ability toproofread as accurately on computerscreens as they do on paper suggeststhat there is some type of disruption incognitive processing among thesemedia. Future research should exam-ine the psychological mechanism,which might indicate a cognitive ex-planation for the differences.

The introduction of computers anddesktop publishing into journalismclassrooms has restructured curriculaand practices throughout journalismschools across the country.^"Journalism education quickly embracesany new technology as it surfaces in

hopes to stay abreast of industry prac-tices.^^ Journalism educators have feltpressed to revamp their existing cours-es to include current technologicaladvances^^ and have increasingly expe-rienced stress in an attempt to keep upwith technology in their classrooms.^^As the assumption persists that tech-nology enhances and is beneficial tojournalism practices, it is important toinvestigate the effectiveness of adopt-ing different technologies.

The findings from this study sug-gest that using computers to proofreadmay not be as effective as proofreadingfrom printed copy. Many educators andadministrators may argue that comput-ers will not be taken out of newsrooms,and therefore question what the cur-rent findings imply for journalisminstruction. As just over one-third ofthe public has reported finding errorsin their newspapers and expressed adiminishing perception of the newsmedia to be a credible institution, it isimportant tbat journalism educatorsunderstand the influence of technologyon students' performances and abilityto be accurate.

Journalism educators can begin bylooking at the variables that have beenidentified as influencing participantsproofreading ability. Oliver's findingssuggest that individuals with high lev-els of proofreading experience do notexperience significant differences inability to detect proofreading errorsacross mediums, whereas those indi-viduals who have low proofreadingexperience detect a greater number oferrors in print conditions than comput-er conditions. Oliver's finding suggeststhe medium effect can be diminisbedthrough proofreading experience.^^However, it is important to note thecurrent study did not support Oliver's

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNIGATION EDUCATOR

finding. Previous research also sug-gests that the format the text is pre-sented in may influence participants'ability to proofread.^^ Students maydetect proofreading errors more easilywhen text is presented in smaller"chunks," rather than through pages oftext, which must he navigated. Whileother variahles have been investigat-ed—time, fatigue, annotation method,ownership, familiarity—conflicting re-sults lead to greater confusion as towhat variahles affect individuals' ahili-ty to proofread across media. Furtherinvestigation is needed to gain a clear-er understanding of the effects of suchvariahles, which in turn could produceeffective interventions that couldaddress a medium's influence.

Based on the current study andprior research, researchers are unahleto predict with certainty the influencemediums have on individuals' ahilityto complete proofreading tasks. In lightof the current technological explosion,it is important to continue research inthis area so that we can hetter under-stand how learning and understandingare affected hy medium.

Endnotes

1, Christine D. Urhan, ExaminingOur Credibility: Perspectives of the Pu-blic and the Press, American Society ofNewspaper Editors, 1999, http://www.asne,org/kiosk/reports/99reports/1999examiningourcredahility/ (Octoher 10,2000),

2, Rohert J, Haiman, Best Practicesfor Newspaper Journalists, FreedomForum, 2000, http://www.freedomforum,org/puhlications/diversity/hest

practices/hestpractices.pdf (September10, 2000).

3, Peter Wright and AlanLickorish, "Proof-reading Texts onScreen and Paper," Behavior andInformation Technology 2 (3, 1983):227-35,

4, J. D, Gould and N, Grisch-kowsky, "Doing the Same Work withHard Gopy and Gathode-ray Tuhe(GRT) Gomputer Terminals," HumanFactors 26 (3, 1984): 323-37; andWright and Lickorish, "Proof-readingTexts on Screen and Paper,"

5, R, T, Wilkinson and H. Rohin-shaw, "Proof-reading: VDU and PaperText Compared for Speed, Accuracy,and Fatigue," Behavior and Infor-mation Technology 6 (2, 1987): 125-33,

6, Anthony Greed, Ian Dennis, andStephen Newstead, "Proof-reading onVDU's," Behavior & InformationTechnology 6 (January 1987): 3-13; andWilkinson and Rohinshaw, "Proof-reading: VDU and Paper TextGompared for Speed, Accuracy, andFatigue,"

7, Andrew Dillon, Gliff McKnight,and John Richardson, "Reading fromPaper versus Reading from Screen,"The Computer fournal 31 (5, 1988):457-64,

8, Gould and Grischkowsky,"Doing the Same Work with HardGopy and Gathode-ray Tuhe (GRT)Gomputer Terminals,"

9, Ron Oliver, "Proof-Reading onPaper and Screens: The Influence ofPractice and Experience on Perfor-mance," fournal of Computer-BasedInstruction 20 (fall 1993): 118-24, 119,

10, Greed, Dennis, and Newstead,"Proof-reading on VDU's,"

11, Anthony Greed, Ian Dennis, andStephen Newstead, "Effects of DisplayFormat on Proofreading with VDU's,"

39 SPRING '08

Behavior St Information Technology 7(1988): 467-78.

12. Andrew Dillon, "Reading fromPaper versus Screens: A CriticalReview of the Empirical Literature,"Ergonomics 35 (10, 1992): 1297-1326.

13. Oliver, "Proof-Reading on Paperand Screens: The Influence of Practiceand Experience on Performance."

14. False errors detected by partici-pants were not included in the analy-sis.

15. Previous research has identifiedmedium, editing experience, time/speed, and fatigue as influential vari-ables on the process of proofreading.See Wilkinson and Robinshaw, "Proof-reading: VDU and Paper Text Com-pared for Speed, Accuracy, and Fa-tigue"; Could and Grischkowsky,"Doing the Same Work with Hard Copyand Cathode-ray Tube (CRT) ComputerTerminals"; W. H. Cushman, "Readingfrom Microfiche, VDT and the PrintedPage: Subjective Fatigue and Perfor-mance," Human Factors 28 (1, 1986):63-73; Dillon, "Reading from Paper ver-sus Screens: A Critical Review of theEmpirical Literature"; and Oliver,"Proof-Reading on Paper and Screens:The Influence of Practice and Ex-perience on Performance." Differentstory or stimulus materials have beenimplemented to make certain the textitself is not a confounding factor(Dillon, "Reading from Paper versusScreens: A Critical Review of theEmpirical Literature"; and H. vanOostendorp, "Studying and AnnotatingElectronic Text," in JeanFrancoisRouet, Jarmo J. Levonen, AndrewDillon, and Rand }. Spiro, eds..Hypertext and Cognition (Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996).

16. A i-test was conducted beforethe multivariate analysis to examine

the relationship between medium andproofreading. A significant differencebetween conditions was found [i(56)=-3.87, p<.001]. Participants in the printcondition were more likely to detectproofreading errors (M=9.23, sd=2.8)than participants in the computer con-dition (M=6.66, sd=2.084).

17. Oliver, "Proof-Reading on Paperand Screens: The Influence of Practiceand Experience on Performance."

18. Dillon, "Reading from Paperversus Screens: A Critical Review ofthe Empirical Literature."

19. Oliver, "Proof-Reading on Paperand Screens: The Influence of Practiceand Experience on Performance."

20. Anne M. Hoag, Sandhya S.Bhattacharya, Jeffrey Helsel, Yifeng Hu,Sangki Lee, Jinhee Kim, Sunghae Kim,Patty Wharton Michael, ChongdaePark, Sheila S. Sager, Sangho Seo, CraigStark, and Benjamin Yeo, "A LiteratureReview of Computers and Pedagogy forJournalism and Mass CommunicationEducation," Journalism &• Mass Com-munication Educator 57 (winter 2003):399-407.

21. Hoag et al., "A Literature Re-view of Computers and Pedagogy forJournalism and Mass CommunicationEducation"; and Everette E. Dennis,Philip Meyer, S. Sbyam Sundar, LarryPryor, Everett M. Rogers, Helen L.Chen, and John Pavlik, "LearningReconsidered: Education in the DigitalAge, Communications, Convergence,and the Curriculum," Journalism SrMass Communication Educator 57(winter 2003): 292-317.

22. Hampden Smith, "Teaching Re-porting, Editing on Computers Be-comes Obligation, not Option," Journ-alism Educator 43 (4, 1989): 44-45;Hugh Morgan, "Editing, MakeupRevamped by Desktop Computers,"

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR

Journalism Educator 43 (2, 1988): 83-84.

23. Randal A. Beam, Eunseong Kim,and Paul S. Voakes, "Technology-induced Stressors, Job Satisfaction andWorkplace Exhaustion among Journ-alism and Mass Communication Fa-culty," Journalism &• Mass Commu-

nication Educator 57 (winter 2003):335-51.

24. Oliver, "Proof-Reading on Paperand Screens: The Influence of Practiceand Experience on Performance."

25. See Rouet, Levonen, Dillon,and Spiro, eds.. Hypertext and Cogni-tion.

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