I’m the kind of person who won two straight school spelling bees in seventh and eighth grade.
I’m the kind of person to whom classmates and co-workers have turned for proofreading of assignments and important business documents.
I’m the kind of person who doesn’t quite live up to her potential in typing tests because of an innate desire to go back and correct all errors as they happen*.
So tell me, how exactly did I manage to revamp my résumé on New Year’s Day and not notice a key word missing until after I had sent it out approximately two dozen times?
Well, the proof is in the blog. No pun intended.
More often than not, I end up going back to fix a grammatical mistake or a missing word after I hit “publish” on a blog post, even if it means rewriting an entire paragraph. Which, of course, means I might just be getting lazy in proofreading before I even hit “publish”.
And that’s so not cool, whether it’s just my silly little blog, or the far-and-few-between freelance writing assignments, or the even more important résumé.
Perhaps a re-read of Eats, Shoots & Leaves is in order?
*Don’t get me started on this single space after a period crap. Mavis Beacon taught me two spaces after a period over twenty years ago, dammit.
spellcheck – love it and hate it
Dude. I edit and proofread for a living and am terrible at proofreading my own work. I’m always fixing stuff after publishing. Always.
In this day and age, there’s no reason for two spaces after a period and almost everybody (over the age of __?) does it! I used to, until I started working for a publication that doesn’t allow it.
I can’t abide by the one space typography either! I have been trying to do it (okay, I’ll admit, it looks slightly nicer….) but my right thumb automatically goes “click click” after hitting the period. It’s not working for me at ALL.
I think we all have cringe-worthy proof reading mistakes in our past. My theater company hasn’t had a single show yet wherein everything was perfectly typed out. I had to have 5,000 postcard re-printed last year because two letters were switched on the website address. OH THAT HURT.
I correct stuff on my blog after hitting publish a lot. I know: “Bad blogger, BAD!”
My excuse is that it’s not a blog for profit, so I do whatever I want.
I hate proofreading.
Sorry about your boo-boo. Stuff happens and we all survive it, sort of, kind of.