When Bloggers Try to be Journalists

 

When you read a professional newspaper or magazine, it's not often that you find errors whether it be in spelling or grammar. That's because they have proofreaders, people who are paid to apply the their knowledge of words and the rules of grammar.

Typically, bloggers like me do not have the luxury of having these experts. It, therefore, falls on our shoulders to ensure that such errors do not creep into the text undetected.

Of course, the main defense against these kinds of gaffes is knowledge of the language. If you know the rules, it's possible to write correctly and do it right the first time.

If you know the rules, even if you make a mistake, you'll be able to catch them during the proofreading stage.

Now, I'm not an English writing expert. I make mistakes from time to time, mostly due to fatigue. After writing for the better part of the day, it's possible for me to commit a faux pas and miss them when I go back over the article. That's why I recommend proofreading in spurts or for a few minutes at a time. Fifteen minutes of working followed by three to five minutes of rest is fine for me.

Sadly, I don't always follow my own advice. After finishing my first novel, Legend of the Moon, I did my proofreading, sometimes following my advice and sometimes completely forgetting it. I went through the book several times, finding errors at each pass. After about six proofreading passes, I finally uploaded it to Smashwords. A few months later, I downloaded a copy (because I accidentally deleted my original) and found more errors!

PROOFREADING 85,000 WORDS

Sometimes I envy those people who just shrug and say, "Oh well, they know what I'm talking about anyway." Their lives seem so much easier.

But that's not who I am. I don't make corrections because of some OCDian urge or to impress people. I care that people won't misinterpret what I'm trying to convey. It might turn out to be an expensive or career-ending mistake.

In 1872, the US government decreed that imported "fruit, plants" were tax exempt. What they meant was that "fruit-plants" were tax exempt. They lost almost $40,000,000 before the error was corrected.

In 2008, Chile printed a batch of 50 Peso coins. The Chile on the coin was spelled "Chiie." This flubb was world news for some time and resulted in the general manager of the mint being fired along with several other workers.

Granted, the chances of your articles having such far-reaching circumstances or have life-changing influence might be very small. But as those people involved in the examples above discovered, that's what they also thought.