by Sue Forde | Dec. 20, 2017

You’ve written an article and are ready to post it to your blog.  Or, you’ve written the copy (material) for your web page, and are ready to publish it for all the world to see.  One question you should ask yourself before you push the “publish” button:  Are there any grammatical, spelling or syntax errors in what I’ve written?

It’s easy, when you are doing the writing, to overlook (not see) errors in your work. 

You can do your own proofreading, if you prefer, or you can hire a professional to do it for you at a nominal charge.  (Our fee is $0.05 per word to provide this service for you.)

What is proofreading?  According to the business dictionary, it’s the careful reading (and rereading) of a (yet to be finally printed) document, to detect any errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. It may also involve checking of different elements of a layout (such as headlines, paragraphs, illustrations, and colors) for their correct dimensions, placement, type, etc. Every author knows that (despite the spelling checking abilities of modern word processors) a human proof reader is indispensable. Also called proofing.”

Here are a few tips if you want to do your own proofreading:

• Always work from a printed-out version of your article;
• Read the article out loud. It helps you “hear” possible errors in grammar, syntax, and sometimes helps you catch spelling errors;
• Use a blank piece of paper or a ruler to hide the line below, which will help you slow down in your reading;
• Check carefully for spelling errors, for syntax errors (be sure that subjects and verbs agree, etc.) and check for incomplete sentences (unless they are intentional);
• Run spell check on your document as a double-check for spelling errors (although the spell check does not always catch the correct spelling in context.)

If writing isn’t your long suit,  then you might hire a professional to review your work, to assure that what you publish is perfect before it goes “live”.

Or, if you’d rather not write at all (perhaps you’d rather be using your time to work on your business itself), but see the importance in blogging to keep your site vibrant, active and in the forefront of the search engines, we provide that service too.  For more information, see https://www.dynamic-graphics.com/seo-services/.