Writing Mistakes You Didn't Know You Make

[snakeair]

Between blogging, social media, website publishing, email messaging, and cell phone texting, daily writing has become an integral part of many people's lives. While a good deal of online writing is informal, for Internet publishers who are small business owners, the written word is our potential customers' first impression of us and our businesses. Therefore it is crucial to present our best writing whether we create it ourselves or outsource it.

After carefully crafting a piece of writing, optimizing it for search engines, and designing the article layout, take the time to look for mistakes in spelling, grammar, and structure. Many readers won't be able to identify the errors, yet they will react negatively to poor writing. It's difficult to follow and understand an article that contains too many mistakes.

Here is some of what to look for as you proofread.

Continued at: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/bl...-mistakes.html

It's a good thing that I have a plugin for my WordPress blog that checks my grammar. Although I still manually make a few edit's but still the content is never perfect.

Any comments on this blog post?

[miggy]

I very much agree with this. I admittedly am one of those grammar nazis and cringe at those gramatically incorrect sentences (including incorrect spellings) I read all over the web.

For forums like this one, it could be forgivable. But, when dealing business with other people it could ruin everything.

[Wayne Liew]

As a non-native English speaker trying to write for an audience that prefers English content, I find that improving your grammar and vocabulary usage actually helps.

However, if you are writing to an audience that follows your content mostly because it's coming from you, then hiring an editor to perfect your writing could be an overkill. Sometimes, making the same grammatical mistakes show your audience that the piece of writing actually comes from you.

Thoughts from more non-native English writers or speakers?

[Ghost Eyes]

Originally Posted by Wayne Liew

However, if you are writing to an audience that follows your content mostly because it's coming from you, then hiring an editor to perfect your writing could be an overkill. Sometimes, making the same grammatical mistakes show your audience that the piece of writing actually comes from you.

It depends on the content in my opinion but agree with Wayne mostly.

Ending a sentence in a preposition or using slang (though not mentioned here I have seen this before as being "wrong") is not terrible and can give the writing a little character. No one talks perfectly so I think there can be a little forgiveness in writing.

I do run my articles through a free grammar checker (www.spellchecker.net/grammar/) but manually check each errors it finds and will actually leave one or two it finds if it distracts from the flow of the article.

I said a "little forgiveness". An article shocked full of errors is a major distraction to me. Especially spelling errors that can so easily be fixed now a days.

[Maa]

I do think checking the grammar is very important. Many times I have caught some typing mistakes in my own blogging post and I went back and corrected them.

[mmbus]

I think this blog is very helpful. I'm guilty of posting typos fairly frequently. I have a bad habit of publishing them before reading them over. I do agree though, that when I read a post that has a typo in it, my first thought is that the source isn't credible. Double standards I know.

I've heard the best way to catch your mistakes is to put your writing down for an hour, do something else, then come back to it and re-read it. If you don't give yourself time to clear your head, then re-reading it won't be as effective, you'll only see what you think you wrote and not what you actually wrote.

[TheClueLessDeveloper]

There are a few great little nuggets of help listed in that blog post. Even experienced writers can easily make mistakes, so a little check list of common errors - I'm probably guilty of confusing less and fewer myself more often than I would like to admit - is indeed helpful.

[Jim Gillum]

I dun't make non of dem misteaks......much....:))))

IMO.....Writing, except technical writing, should be done in the same manner that a person speaks...
Natural, but still as correct as possible....

Reading content that is too formal, can not be effective from a selling perspective....

For example, TV commercials....which ones do you normally watch....
I would bet .....the "comfortable" clips.....

.

[TheClueLessDeveloper]

Originally Posted by Jim Gillum

IMO.....Writing, except technical writing, should be done in the same manner that a person speaks...
Natural, but still as correct as possible....

Absolutely, I always read out the texts aloud when I proofread my own material. Well, perhaps not aloud, some kind of whisper rather.

By doing so I can immediately notice bad or difficult parts. But this is all old news.

[Sanket Patel]

I am glad a discussion is done on this thread as individuals do provide quality content to their clients but always lacking in raising standards in their services. It is indeed very important to check the accuracy and the correctness of the article.

[Socialbakers]

Originally Posted by Jim Gillum

I dun't make non of dem misteaks......much....:))))

IMO.....Writing, except technical writing, should be done in the same manner that a person speaks...
Natural, but still as correct as possible....

Reading content that is too formal, can not be effective from a selling perspective....

For example, TV commercials....which ones do you normally watch....
I would bet .....the "comfortable" clips.....

.

I completely agree with you. If the text doesn't sound good when read aloud, it's probably not a good text, or better to say, not well-written...

[paradigmcontent]

Originally Posted by Socialbakers

I completely agree with you. If the text doesn't sound good when read aloud, it's probably not a good text, or better to say, not well-written...

Hear, hear!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Using speech-to-text software can also help you keep your writing natural and conversational. Doing it directly through typing is harder. Even so, it is possible for you to cultivate the skill of writing like you talk. It just takes a whole lot of practice.

[rajjkant]

Now writing is very necessary for internet, mobile services, blogging and social media optimization. for online marketing, content writing has its own importance.

[BiologyWebmaster]

Originally Posted by miggy

I very much agree with this. I admittedly am one of those grammar nazis and cringe at those gramatically incorrect sentences (including incorrect spellings) I read all over the web

The web sure is one thing, but not the only medium used to gather news...I consider myself a grammar nazi as well and cringe when I am reading something that is not either spelled correctly or grammatically correct.

Even articles written in print (i.e) newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, brochures, etc...are chock full of writing errors.

It truly baffles me how large publications with numerous paid editors still push out stuff that anyone well-versed in the english language can obviously spot out.

Now in maintaining an online presence in my opinion; good writing and grammar are even more important!

Much Thanks,

BiologyWebmaster

[kemcar]

Its true that sometimes people want to add a pinch of their style to their writings which can be anything -a slang, or a particular phrase reiterated, a spelling error or even coining new names for existing things. But this must also be kept in mind that these things should be presented in a way that people see it as style and not mistakes, of course because of the negative impression an article full of mistakes gets.

[Natse]

I do some mistakes...like commas for example and sometimes word choices. after i read this article i started to make fewer mistakes and hopefully will remain so

[baban78]

Grammar is important but english is a lot more complicated than many other languages when it comes to spelling. Not all of us are A+ students and as long as you provide great content, a few mistakes can be forgiven.

[Eximius]

as a writer of comics people are always sceptical when i message or chat to the via web apps. its like well when im writing im in my writing mode and spell check and grammar review my work

when just chattin lol i tend to be relaxed and just make life easier

lol rofl and all that jazz hehe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

here i an example of a writer i know.

I tried to advise him but he would not listen. cant link at moment but on Indiegogo site type Resol for the funding project

here is what he wrote.

if your going to be taken seriously as a writer you cant do something like this

PASTED

Our Story

i work with a company know as the grim rider publishing company and myself along with five others, deisgn the storys for new and different comics. we have been together for over a year and now have are first project almost ready for the market, this is our next ideal and we have put the time in to come up with a great comdey comic which i well give the basic ideal in this ad.




What We Need & What You Get

we need to fund rise the money for a artist to bring this story to life, if you can help as we would glad send you a copy of the coimc as soon as it done so you can be the first to read this before it hit the market for everyone esle. for this you would have to email me with detail so i could send it to you.



Other Ways You Can Help

if you find your self unable to donate at this time you can help in another way, spread the word about us so other people can see what we are about and if they want to they can donate



Story

i dont want to give to much away but the ideal is resol is the worst ship in the fleet and every one know it so because of a little mistake one of the most promising student end up on resol and there first mission is to get the captian a moon meal from the fast food place on the moon and and due to a mishap they end up lost in space. there is a whole crew of comic characters including bubbles the blonde big boob navigation crew member who actual can't see anything below her boobs. but like i said am not going to give to much away but if you can see where am going with this and you want to be a part of bring this life please donate



thank you

k.wise

[BridgeLL]

I agree that when writing for work, you're obligated to present quality material. However, I also agree that there is an unreasonable amount of content that is somehow incorrect.

I've been writing/advertising as work for almost a year now - not that such a small amount of experience counts for much, but during my job I find myself avidly reading tons of social news sites. The result? The errors are so vast that I just log them away and keep it in mind when I am considering their page rank.

Here are a few I simply cannot overlook:

Supposably vs. supposedly

Expresso

Exspecially

"then" vs. "than"

Confusing "there" "their" and "they're"

Confusing "your" and "you're"

Toward vs. towards - I had an old linguistics professor that claimed "towards" wasn't a word, and that "toward" was the only acceptable form.

So, do you guys have any you can't stand? Thoughts on the towards vs toward? What does the AP say?

[BiologyWebmaster]

Originally Posted by baban78

Grammar is important but english is a lot more complicated than many other languages when it comes to spelling. Not all of us are A+ students and as long as you provide great content, a few mistakes can be forgiven.

If this is the mentality you have towards writing, then I hope you have hired at least one A+ writer to your staff!

People tend to forgive their own mistakes, but others will not always be so keen to forgive your mistake; especially if your poorly written content is soliciting money from the readers of that content.

Originally Posted by BridgeLL

I agree that when writing for work, you're obligated to present quality material. However, I also agree that there is an unreasonable amount of content that is somehow incorrect.

It is important for any writer to know what is both correct and incorrect use of the English language; including its vocabulary and grammar. If more people took the initiative to learn about their incorrect use of the English language; we would see less of it for sure.

Just because misuse of grammar has become commonplace, does not make it justifiable.

Originally Posted by BridgeLL

I've been writing/advertising as work for almost a year now - not that such a small amount of experience counts for much, but during my job I find myself avidly reading tons of social news sites. The result? The errors are so vast that I just log them away and keep it in mind when I am considering their page rank.

That is a good tactic, reading other peoples' mistakes will remind you to steer away from doing the same. Just the other day I received something in the mail, a company offering their services to me as a consumer, by the time I got to the second paragraph, I threw the offer away because they had mispelled numerous words.

Mind you, I will not share what company this was sending me promotional offers, soliciting money from me, but they are a large company with millions in assets; shame how the one assest they don't have is a vigilant copy editor!

Originally Posted by BridgeLL

"then" vs. "than"

This truly irks me, I can immediately pick up on when people use the incorrect one...

Originally Posted by BridgeLL

Toward vs. towards - I had an old linguistics professor that claimed "towards" wasn't a word, and that "toward" was the only acceptable form.

I agree, "Towards" is not acceptable..."Toward" dictates direction and is to used as a preposition!

Much Thanks,

BiologyWebmaster