Comments on: Brewing, Baking, and Blogging: The Importance of Proofing

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:54:33 +0000

Visited your site last week, in fact. And I certainly didn’t see anything that jumped up and grabbed me by the throat, so you must be doing it mostly right!

By: Isisxotic

Isisxotic — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:50:04 +0000

Great post! I love the analogy to baking! And it reminded me that I certainly need to proofread more. I'm very much the "oh thank god it's done!" - (PUBLISH) type of blogger. Isisxotic´s last blog post: Gear Plan - WotLK Edition

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:19:31 +0000

Nothing irks me more than when I mistype "there" for "their" (or one I didn’t include, "too" instead of "to"). On the latter, I’m convinced it’s because I type too fast, and that extra "o" sneaks in there.

By: Lin [EG]

Lin [EG] — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:02:39 +0000

Very well written, Kestrel. I love the relation to baking and brewing!

Commas and semi-colons are a favorite of mine; generally, I catch most of my other errors.

I must admit, though, that last night, GW had a role play meeting [Feathermoon]. There was this one really outspoken member [who I didn't like due to the issue she kept coming back to] who was really, really irking me. Why? Every single “there” she used was wrong. All of the times she had to use that word, she really needed to use “their”… I was over at a friend’s, and he heard me blow up at my screen.

For goodness sake, people. It is hardly difficult, and, along with being highly distracting for those who like grammar, their words may be read less.

Homophones are fun… but not fun to abuse.

Lin [EG]´s last blog post: [ WotLK ] :: Devastating Powers of Typhoon

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:29:23 +0000

My sentences tend to get wordy, so I try to keep my paragraphs short–2 or 3 sentences. That introduces more white space. Some posts (like this one) naturally lend themselves to internal headings. If you can find ways to break up text that way, it definitely helps not only the appearance of the article, but the ease with which your audience can follow your discussion.

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:23:18 +0000

“It won’t have any affect on how you write, anyway.” Right? (It’s wrong, btw!)

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:22:26 +0000

Heheh…see my reply to Ess re: commas. And that second sentence didn’t look right as I proofed it, but I did NOT read it out loud. Had I done so, I’d have caught the “by”. Just another example of “editing in my head.” Good catches!

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:21:29 +0000

I’m a commaholic too. I also try to go through and eliminate the word “that” as much as I can.

By: Ess

Ess — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:04:51 +0000

I proofread the heck out of my entries before posting, but I’ve found that nothing highlights a mistake so well as viewing it through your feed reader once you’ve already posted it. I don’t know why. I always find at least one or two things that need tweaking through that interface.

I’d guess that my worst offense is extraneous commas. I remove a lot of the extras during proofreading, but I’m sure I drove the sticklers crazy with the extra ones that remain!

Ess´s last blog post: A Poxic Post-Mortem

By: Svlad

Svlad — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:09:24 +0000

The Laws of Irony firmly state that anyone telling others how to improve their grammar will inevitably make a grammatical error in the process. Nobody is exempt!

In each of the preceding bullets, the words “both can” are redundant, and detract from the presentation. By simply eliminating those words from each bullet would have improved the flow.

Eliminate the second comma from the first sentence.

Remove “by” from the second sentence.

Note that I myself am not exempt from said Law of Irony, and that you therefore cannot help but find an error in this post!