Proofread in a quiet place with no distractions. Allow yourself a period of pure concentration; turn off the TV and your cell phone and find a quiet place, away from people who are talking.
Read your work out loud, articulating each word as it is actually written.
Read slowly, not at your usual reading pace.
Make multiple passes, checking for specific errors or features on each pass. For example, read first for topic sentences and paragraph divisions, then for transitions, grammatically correct sentences, parallel structure, or punctuation.
Run the spell checker. Be especially aware of errors you typically make, especially misspellings that are overlooked by the spell checker. Run the grammar checker if you find it helpful. But don’t rely too heavily on those tools. Before automatically accepting their changes, consider their accuracy and appropriateness for your writing.
Change the formatting—font size or margins, for instance—to make the text appear unfamiliar. Set the layout in your Word file to a different view. Or increase the zoom to 125% or 150% (especially useful for catching punctuation or spacing errors).
Set Word to View/Print Layout or File/Print Preview so you see exactly how the file will print. Click the ¶ icon (Show/Hide) on the Word Standard Toolbar to see all spaces, tabs, and returns.
Enlist a volunteer (a friend, roommate, or co-worker) to proofread after you. A second reader may catch something you didn’t.
Check your spacing, your headers and footers, your headings, your pagination, and your line breaks. Fix format issues before you print.