![]() It can be any word you might imagine, from a verb to a noun. You can now add Grammarly extension to your Chrome Browser for free and edit your writing on the fly > Download & install here.Įvery writer has a few words that he uses way too often and probably aren't really as wonderful as you might think. If you make a lot of spelling/grammar errors, consider investing in something like Grammarly to help double-check your work. The spell and grammar checkers that come with platforms like WordPress and MS Word are very limited. You can then look at it more carefully and decide whether or not it needs fixed. While they will sometimes tell you a sentence is wrong when it is correct, they will bring your attention to possible issues. Grammar checkers are handy in the same way. You will be able to easily fix it, reducing your errors in your text. A simple spell check will recognize that “restuarant” is not the correct spelling. Let's say you spell the word “restaurant” incorrectly and put the “u” in front of the “a”. For example, a spell check will catch a word that is misspelled. However, these checkers are not completely useless. It is true that grammar/spell checkers won't catch everything and that you need to have a firm grasp on grammar (or get help from someone who does) to catch all errors. One of the reasons this probably works is that your brain views the printed page just a bit differently, so it is not as familiar as it was before. It is listed first, because it is very important. ![]() However, even though I am listing this as # 1, this really should be one of your final steps in the editing process. You'll be surprised how many errors you'll spot in print that you never saw on your screen. However, when you print out the written word, you can get away from all the electronics for a minute and read word-by-word, watching for typos. In this digital age, it is very easy to create on our computers, edit on our computers, and collaborate on our computers. In the meantime, here are some things you can do to limit the errors as much as possible. You are a human and you are fallible.ĭon't worry, your readers will let you know and you can thank them, fix the error and know it is a bit better than it was before. So, while the goal is to get your writing as perfect as possible, understand that you'll never be 100% perfect. I see it often in magazines and newspapers. You've probably noticed it in books you've read. It seems almost impossible that a book could go through so many revisions and still have errors. I grabbed my copy and sure enough there were two errors just as she'd said. Until… a reader sent me a note and listed the two errors she'd found in my book. I found a spot where I had written “lick” instead of “lock”. The book was formatted and the proofs sent to me and my editor. The book then went to a copyeditor, who found a couple of typos. She would have sworn to you that there were no more typos. We fixed the typos and she read the book again. I then sent it to my editor, who found typos. If you had asked me, I would have told you there was no way that you could find a typo in that book. One example of this would be a fiction book I wrote that I personally edited a minimum of six different times. It probably isn't surprising that the study showed that if you were extremely familiar with writing that you were much more likely to overlook mistakes others would catch. The Journal of Research and Reading published a study that looked at whether how familiar you were with text correlated to how many errors you made in proofreading. “The reason we don’t see our own typos is because what we see on the screen is competing with the version that exists in our heads,” said Nick Stockton the writer of that article. Your readers may notice, because they don't know what you were trying to say. This is why you might write and deeply edit a post for your blog and not realize you have a misspelled word or missing connector. Your brain knows exactly what you want to say, so you also read it that way, even when it isn't 100% correct. When you are writing, you are trying to convey something to your readers. In an articled on Wired, psychologist Tom Stafford with the University of Sheffield explained that the reason people can't catch their own typos is that the brain focuses on higher order tasks. Finances may dictate that you do some or all of it yourself. However, you may not yet be at a level where you can afford to farm out editorial work. ![]() Sure, you could hire an editor to do this for you. However, there are some things you can do that will reduce those typos to next to nothing and help you create almost perfectly clean copy for your readers. Pick up any bestselling novel, read any popular blog, or even look at a newspaper, and you'll find one thing in common: Each and every writer makes typos of some sort and it is really difficult to catch all of the typos in your work.
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