Taylor Marek.com

© Stephen Poff

You are in the art museum marveling at a masterpiece when you notice there is a green smudge running across the bottom of the painting that should not be there. Regardless of whether it was a careless stroke by the artist or not, what just happened? Instantly your liking of the painting took a hit.

The same should be with your blog, research paper, forum post, or any other form of writing you undertake.

I’ve read many blogs. Possibly even too many… (nah, scratch that. I’ll be reading blogs forevermore) I’ve read enough to know this fact. Please double check your work!

Currently, Chris Pirillo is doing a YouTube series slamming poor grammar and writing skills (Note, there is language and it is meant to be offensive, but in a humorous kind of way). Chris can get away with it as he has been on the internet for quite a while now and he has a degree in English, so I can understand where he’s coming from.

It is a simple yet most often overlooked fact in today’s age. Here are a couple tips to remember:

1. Solidify your thoughts

By reading what you just wrote, you will be able to clarify your thoughts. If you need to make changes, now is the time to do it before you publish it. It also confirms what you were thinking, and typically your mind and the words on the page will click together. It never hurts to read what you just wrote and is much more beneficial if you do in the long run.

2. Uncover Errors

If there is a comma missing, punctuation misplaced, or a word spelled wrong, you will usually find it on the second read-through. You may also find a word that looks similar, but because the spell checker didn’t flag it, it will go unnoticed unless you read through and realize that the word is actually spelled differently.

Trust me, it will make you look better in the long run if you double check your work.

A picture is worth a thousand words yet if one part is wrong, it ruins the entire masterpiece.

What are you doing to correct that?

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