It’s a crime what laziness can do. That’s the downside of automation and software tools. People get lazy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology and I depend on Spell-checking software to help with my writing. It finds the typos but it does not find all the spelling mistakes.It does not find the contextual mistakes. What do I mean by that?

Here’s an example: “The kid’s got heat.”

Maybe, the “kid” is a pitcher with a really wicked fastball. Or maybe, I meant to type “heart” as in:

“The kid’s got heart.”

The absence of one letter can give you two wildly different interpretations. Ol’ Robodunce, spellchecker won’t spot gaffs like that.

Remember, in school how you used to struggle over the proper usage of “there, they’re, and their?” Some people still struggle with those. Grammar can be pretty tricky, so tricky that a computer designed solely to correct grammatical mistakes would have to be the size of a Pontiac, or even a cruise ship. It would take a truckload of Einsteins to program it.

That leaves you, my friend, You, the author- the last line of defense.

For the sake of your readers, for the sake of clarity and for the sake of personal pride…Proofread it! Read it out loud. Read it again and again just to be sure. Do you want potentially

Every day surfing the web I encounter site after site with so many errors; obvious stuff that a 3rd Grader could pick up on. These people are just too darned busy building pop-ups to proofread their copy. Rush, rush, rush.

And these are people trying to sell me things! Do I want to buy from a Bonehead? Not bloody likely.

You may have noticed this is a pet peeve of mine. That being said, a person that does not pay attention to the little details of publishing online may not pay attention to all the little details of good service. I can’t imagine that I am the only one that jumps to that conclusion.

It could cost you a lot in sales and/or credibility. Proofread. Take the time before you upload. Don’t be a Bonehead.

-David Parton
Copyright 2005

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