Back in December, my buds at Manta posted a little gem of a “Tip of the Day.” This one was entitled “Take the Time to Proofread.”
The substance of the tip was that even people with not-so-great grammar or punctuation skills notice writing mistakes. They may shrug their shoulders and appear not to hold your errors against you, but hey, they do. So, please proofread your work. Manta specifically addresses websites, but I say check everything with care. If you’re your own proofreader, then take your eyes off your work for a day or, at the very least, a few hours. When you come back to it, you may be surprised at what you’ve missed. Favorite mistakes may include “you’re” instead of “your, “it’s” instead of “its,” or an extra space between words.
Now here you’re probably thinking, “Who’s she to get so exercised about simple typos and the like?” Well, the topic is close to my heart because of recent experience. A couple of days ago, I got an email from a colleague I like and respect, pointing out a typo on the About Me page of my website. The mistake was small—the article “a” juxtaposed with “is”—but it was evidence of a failure to circle back and check before pressing “publish.”
I’m planning on some updates to my site soon. Rest assured that I’ll proofread.
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