Last weekend, I was giving a workshop, and one of the participants pointed out to me that there were TWO errors in the title slide of my PowerPoint. Two!! It was, needless to say, pretty embarrassing.
I went to school to be an English teacher, and I’ve been a writer all my life, and grammar mostly comes easily to me. But I’m shocked at how often I see grammar and spelling mistakes on websites and on blogs. In my mind, there are few things that make you look… um… less professional than bad spelling and grammar. My favourite blogs don’t just offer excellent information, but they are also well written. I strive to make my own blog well written, but sometimes, I mess up. Confession: when I was in high school, my English teacher and mentor would say “you’re a great writer, but your spelling is atrocious!” To this day, I rely pretty heavily on spell check–maybe I have some mild dyslexia? Mistakes happen to me most when I’m editing and re-editing, or when I’m in a hurry to get a post up.
So. I have two things for you today. One is an infographic on the most common grammar and spelling errors.
The second is a tool called Grammarly. You can copy/paste your blog post into this tool and it will alert you to potential spelling and grammatical errors. In addition, it has a plagiarism checker, because, you know, nobody wants to be that guy.
If only I’d had it and used it before my presentation last week! Seriously, as careful as you might be, mistakes still slip in. It happens to me all the time.
This post sponsored by Grammarly.
That’s one of the things I worry about too. And sometimes it feels like the more I read it over, the less I see. A second pair of eyes can be really helpful.
It’s true!! It’s like when you take your kids to visit their grandmother, and she says “Oh, you’ve grown so much!” You don’t notice when you look at it over and over again!