Spelling is Your Friend

Not everyone can spell well. Personally I have many problems with spelling and have to proofread my writing several times before everything comes out just right, but when it comes to blogging spelling is incredibly important. This is true because many other people are reading what you write and if you have grammatical errors such as spelling mistakes, you look less professional and knowledgeable even if you know your topic really well.

It’s a sad fact that in the day of acronym texting (lol, brb, ttyl) and abbreviated words in text (w/, b/c, wldnt) that spelling is still seen as a deal breaker if you can’t preform up to expectations. When people read your blog they expect you to know what you’re talking about, and even if you have a PHD in your topic, you will turn several people off if you “spill tings rong”.

With the dawn of computers came the wonderful tool known as “Spell Check”, but this convenient option isn’t always accurate or helpful, in fact it can miss critical words that are spelled correctly, but were not the words you meant to use. Spell Check can be helpful but if you’re using the word “accept” and “except” it might let the problem pass because the spelling is correct and grammatically it can’t tell you that you’re using the wrong word.

One way to alleviate this problem is to read all of your posts out loud to yourself. This may seem like an unnecessary step to publishing your thoughts, but if you hear the words you’re more likely to catch mistakes than reading it silently to yourself. When you read your pre-posted article look up words that you aren’t sure about. Although computers are an integral part of our lives, dictionaries can be helpful in elevating your spelling errors.

One of the ways I make sure my pieces are correct is to copy and paste the document into an email and see if the Internet Spell Check will catch any of my errors. Even if everything looks right this doesn’t mean that it is. As an extra precaution against evil spelling errors, send the article to a spelling wizard friend who won’t mind taking a look at what you’ve written. They will be able to see all of the imperfections of your work and shoot the corrections back to you quickly so that your words of wisdom can been seen by the masses as soon as possible.

For other tips and general questions don’t forget to go to the BloggingTips Grammar, Spelling and Proofreading Forum.

Written by Patricia Vennes from Writer's Rants
Posted on April 6th, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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