Proofreading seems to be a topic that people are talking about a lot around the web right now. Deb Ng mentioned her problems with proofreading her own blogs when she put up her job leads today. And About Freelance Writing has 6 tips for self-proofreading. I always think that this is an interesting topic because I feel completely the opposite of it as almost everyone else but have had to conform to people’s views because of the nature of my work.
You see, I don’t care about typos. Don’t get me wrong – if something is completely filled with typos and misspellings then I definitely start to wonder about the person who wrote the article. But if there’s just one or two typos in a piece then I really don’t care at all. I assume that the person was typing to quickly and didn’t catch the error when proofreading. This is particularly true of blogs and posts and social networks.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that sometimes I really like seeing other people’s typos. They often make me laugh. I’ll see typos in printed books sometimes and they always make me do a double take and think “hm”. Sometimes the mistake itself is humorous and sometimes it’s just nice to see that other professional writers make mistakes too.
But I know that most people don’t agree about this. I’ve read plenty of articles on the topic and I know that almost everyone makes some really bad judgments about writers who have typos in their work. These writers come off as unprofessional, lazy, careless … etc … And because of that, I work really hard to proofread my work when I’m posting for a client. I don’t want that image of me as a writer being put out there even if I don’t care about typos myself.
But the truth is that I still struggle to proofread the work that I do for my own blogs. I kind of figure that if a typo slips in now and then, I don’t really care. I like to connect with people who have a similar laidback attitude as me towards writing and life in general. I believe that content matters way more than a few errors and I like meeting people who feel the same way. However, Deb’s post today does point out that our personal blogs are seen by potential clients and so it may be important to proofread even if I think it’s kind of silly.
What do you think? Do you abhor typos? Do you proofread your own blogs before they go live?
Do You Proofread Your Work? has 3 Comments
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May 5th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Let me start by asking if the typo in the sentence “typing TO quickly ” was an intentional irony, or a purely coincidental affirmation of your opinion toward typos in general. If it was intentional, I think I should win a prize or something.
Now to the point. I generally do avoid typos whenever possible, but I am also somewhat impatient (and sometimes a little lazy) when it comes to proofreading. I often feel that once it is written, it’s written, and any time I spend going back over it is time I’m not spending writing something else. A piece filled with typos does tend to reflect poorly on the professionalism of the author, but the occasional misstep here and there is going to happen.
@Will – Great catch! If I had a prize to offer, I would.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I have a super, super hard time proofreading my own work, even though I love to proofread other people’s assignments and they’ll come to me with them.
@ Miss Lissy – It’s definitely easier to proofread someone else’s work since you’re coming to it with completely fresh eyes. Since you already know what you were trying to say in your own work it’s really easy to just skim it as though that’s what is written there and then miss the errors.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:14 am
[...] who has ever had a reason to discuss typos with me knows that I love them. It’s not just that I don’t mind them (although I [...]