How many of you are bloggers?
How many of you can’t believe the title of this post?
How many of you saw the goof right away?
How would you feel if it were yours?
A couple of years ago, I wrote a short piece called “The Impotence of Proofreading” based on a YouTube video of the same name, at a time when I had very few connections. I followed it up with several other posts on reading what we’ve written, not blindly following spellcheck, and so on.
And I still see grammar goofs everywhere. Embarrassing ones. Ones that can hurt a writer’s reputation. Ones that should be corrected. But by whom?
And whether you’re a native English speaker or someone brave enough to use this difficult language as a second, third, or thirty-third language, the question still remains:
Have you ever had a professional copyeditor check your writing?
If not, why not?
What stops you from asking a professional to check your writing? Expense? Embarrassment? Fear of finding something? You have no idea whom to ask? You never even thought of doing that?
Professional writers know the value of having someone read what they’ve written; they know how hard it is to proofread their own writing. And they know that whoever does that needs to know right from wrong in this weird world of American usage and punctuation. The fact that their mother, sister, father, best friend, or boss is a really smart person — or was an English major in college — may not be enough. Are they smart in American grammar and usage?
Wrong question: “How smart is he?”
Right question: “How is he smart?”
And if you’re (your) one (won) of those writers who think spellcheck does more (moor) than it does, you (ewe) might (mite) want (wont) to (too, two) take a look at my Tuesday Tricksters posts, which (witch) are all (awl) about homophones, those devilish words that sound the same but (butt) don’t mean (mien) the same thing and are spelled differently. Spellcheck does only one thing well: It checks spelling. It does not and cannot check usage.
You might also want to consult a good copyeditor, just to be sure.
A good copyeditor will help you look and sound as smart as you are.
If you’re curious about any one of your blog posts (up to about 800 words), ask me to take a look. I will read it and let you know what I see for FREE. Right. FREE.
Isn’t your reputation worth at least that much?