Alternative websites for proofreading

Question

What websites are available where people can practice writing English, and have their written work corrected by native speakers?

(It'll be useful to point people to this question if they've asked a "question" that's purely "please proofread this text")

Answer 1

Lang-8 is a website where you can write a journal post in English, and have your entry corrected by native speakers of English.

In return, you're encouraged to correct journal posts written in the language that you're a native speaker of.

(Declaration of interest: I'm a user of the site) Update: It is shutting down

Italki is another great language exchange website, and there you will find many native speakers who will gladly and eagerly correct sentences or even short essays. On the how it works page, it states:

CORRECT YOUR WRITING

Write short essays using a foreign language and get corrections from the community. Share your ideas and opinions while improving your writing skills.

I [@GoDucks] use that site from time to time.

Answer 2

If you just need to proofread a single sentence, you can use HiNative. It is a product of Lang-8.

Answer 3

As said by @Dan Brown, proofreading "is a lot of work, not particularly rewarding, and only ever helps one single person." This means you will get poor support, because native speakers won't have much incentive to open a dictionary to show you why this exact word doesn't work, unless you pay for professional editors.

You have to change your mindset from "please help me" to "I have something interesting, let me show you". And the one who is interested in your work is the one who is interested in the topic. What is your topic? Nature? Family? Business? Find the community that is interested in your niche topic, they will have an incentive to proofread your work. If your final result is interesting intrinsically, then minor English mistakes will not be a problem.

So here is what I've done:

1. Post it to a niche subreddit. In my case, it's my Statement of Purpose to /r/gradadmissions
2. From there you can see what will interest proofreaders more than just English problems, and hopefully it will attract more eyes. In my case, it's the fine line between "confidence" and "presumption" in /r/proofreading.

You can check out How can I catch more errors when I proofread? in Writing, or some advice in hiring one in Fiverr. You can also ask whether a specific sentence construction sound fine in this very site, e.g. Does this sound fine? "Because the one who is willing to do an arduous task for a person is the one who really care about them".