I’m writing to apologize for the spelling mistake in my previous letter, which led to our most unfortunate misunderstanding.
Just think, now that the incident is over, we can look back on this and laugh at how it came about.
The now famous letter, for your convenience, is attached here:
Dear Editor,
I went to meet the Prince when he came to visit our fair town. While it was a pleasant and productive meeting, I was nonetheless surprised when, as we went to part, he shit in his hand and offered it to me.
He claimed this was a custom in his land, a way of sealing a deal. I was, as I’m sure you’ll understand, disgusted by his action, and refused to take his hand. The prince’s face grew red with anger at my refusal, and stormed out of the room…I was roughly escorted out of the room by his guards.
In short, I was both disappointed and disgusted in my meeting with the Prince. I had expected more from an official from a foreign land.
Sincerely,
Disgusted in St. Louis
I swear I’d read that letter several times before I sent it out. A single character, using an ‘h’ instead of a ‘p’, caused all this trouble…riots, shouting matches, insults traded between our countries.
Who would have thought that such a simple typo would have led to an international incident? Certainly not I. However, you must admit that now I can add “Internationally recognized” to my list of accomplishments on my resume!
Before publishing my letter, you had written me back, asking for me to reread and verify all I’d written in my letter. My assumption is you were concerned about printing something libelous. I skimmed my letter again, but the events were the same (or so I’d thought). I’d responded that everything was accurate and looked fine.
How could I have missed such an obvious error?
When I reread my letter, I’d read what I meant to say, not what I’d actually written. I offer no further excuse.
However, I do offer a sincere apology to the Prince. I’m still disgusted by his actions, but not nearly as much as my atrocious proofreading skills. I do hope that he can find it in his heart to forgive me for such an egregious error.
I have only one further question for the Prince: Can we shake hands and make up?
Sincerely,
Embarrassed in Seattle
P.S. Yes, I have moved in order to save myself further embarrassment, and have hired a team of three proofreaders to monitor everything I write before I send it out.
As writers, we all struggle with editing our own work. We know what we intended to say, so often our eyes see our intentions in place of what is actually there.
Is all lost? Are we completely unable to edit our own work? Are we forever reliant on the assistance of others?
At some point, we are reliant on others to edit our work. Besides reading our work with fresh eyes, others also bring a world of experience that is different than ours. Others also read our work with (perhaps) different goals in mind–for example, perhaps I intend a piece to be entertaining, and a reader believes the same piece (at least at first) to be educational. These different perspectives change how our work is interpreted, so we may not get our intended message to the reader.
However, there are several techniques we can use to look at our own writing through fresh eyes. I have used each of these techniques with varying degrees of success, and have found them to be successful at finding different types of errors.
1. Change your work’s appearance
By changing the size, color, or font of your work, you force yourself out of the familiar feel of your favorite font. Suddenly, words that fit poorly with the flow of the rest of your article, story, or other work pop out due to the changed appearance. The best font to use is one that changes which words are on the edge of a page–so, as an example, you might use a fixed-width font like Courier instead of your typical variable-width font like Times New Roman.
This method is best used for looking at the general flow of your article and making sure that it makes sense. You may also find that this method helps find double word errors, such as “the the” or “of of”.
2. Give yourself some time
The worst time to edit is immediately after you’ve finished writing a piece. At this point, everything is still clear in your mind, so you’re more likely to fill in holes with what you intended to say.
Instead, go out for a walk, a cup of coffee, read a book, or just about anything to get your mind off what you just wrote. For best results, you should stay away from what you wrote for at least an hour, and preferably as long as a day.
Once you get back, use this in combination with one of the other strategies to make sure that you are looking at your work in a different mindset than when you wrote it.
3. Read out loud
This method forces you to read what you’ve written, instead of mentally filling in gaps with what you intended to say. You will find this helps you determine whether your style of writing is consistent–for example, in this article, my tone should be conversational, my transitions fluent, and readers should be able to hear, as well as see, the different techniques I want to get across.
You will also more easily find missed words/phrases, poorly worded phrases, confusing sentences, and many other errors when you hear yourself speak your work aloud.
4. Print off a copy
This is a variation on changing the appearance of your text. Something about sending information from your computer to your printer invariably introduces grammar errors, so you may as well print it off when you think it’s done and find out what new errors popped up. Some real-life examples from my past:
My phone number inexplicably was incorrect after I printed off a resume, though I was sure I had checked it. Sure enough, somehow the printer changed the phone number on my monitor also.
Several years ago, I tested out some voice recognition software to write an English paper more quickly. When I printed it off, the result was something that passed a spelling checker, but made zero sense (think of the poem, “Eye Half a Spelling Chequer”. Even after making dozens of corrections, several still crept through because I didn’t spend enough time editing. My English professor was less than impressed. I no longer use voice recognition software.
Speaking of voice recognition software, be very wary of anything you write using that software. Sometimes, the software has a mind of its own, and it can be very dark:
As I said, please be careful when using voice recognition software. This was a live demo, so you can imagine what interesting things happen outside the demo as well.
5. Make a list of your most common errors
Every writer I know tends to make the same types of mistakes over and over. The trick, for you, is to know your own most common errors and look specifically for those problems.
Looking for the issues most common to many writers is a good place to start. Read through this partial list of common errors…do you make any of these common errors?
Run-on sentences
Paragraphs that mix several different subjects with no transitions
Mixing up “their,” “there,” and “they’re” — “Their” is used to imply ownership, “there” indicates a position, and “they’re” is a contraction meaning “They are.”
Using repeated words like “the the”, “of of”, etc.
“Can not” vs. “cannot” — This error is common, and there is a subtle difference between the two. “Can not” means that something is optional…you can do it, but you can just as easily not do it. “Cannot” means that you are prohibited from doing something.
“Its” vs “It’s” — “Its” implies ownership. “It’s” is only used as a contraction that means “It is” or “It has”. If you use “It is” or “It has” in place of “it’s” in a sentence, and the phrase sounds awkward, you probably want the possessive form “its”.
“Your” vs “You’re” — “Your” implies ownership. “You’re” is a contraction for “You are”.
Of course, these are just a few of the very common errors. Use this list to start, and add your own “gotchas” as you find them.
Using these 5 strategies will help you to significantly improve your own writing before you pass it on to others. Catching your own errors will also help you to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Did we miss a strategy you prefer to use? Do you rely on one or more of these strategies to improve your own work? Did you see something you plan to try? Leave a comment below!
