By: Anne Elizabeth Clark, Account Coordinator
Imagine an embarrassing typo you made once while typing too quickly plastered in the nation’s capital, to be seen by millions of people for decades to come.
That’s what happened to the man responsible for carving Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 inaugural address into the stone of the Lincoln Memorial. In his haste, he accidentally carved the word “EUTURE” in lieu of the correct “FUTURE.” The extra line has since been filled in but is still noticeable on the memorial.
Proofreading, while obviously important in areas where writing and communication are key, is integral in every field. Mathematic and scientific equations are useless if two numbers are transposed. The wrong key stroke in the financial world can be the difference between a crash and a payday. But, as expected, the public relations field has the biggest need for a proofreader’s hawk-like eye catching every last comma, apostrophe and accidental typo before content is released to the public. Making an egregious error nowadays is far worse than etching one into stone – it’s permanently on the Internet.
Here are some tips that can help you improve your proofreading skills and prevent future embarrassing mistakes:
1. Take your time.
This is simple – if you slow down a little bit while writing your content, you minimize the amount of typos and errors you make. It also allows you to correct a misspelled word as soon as you type it instead of sailing right past it in a rush to get the rest of your blog post, Facebook comment or email reply out of your head and onto the screen.
2. Read it out loud.
Hvae you eevr raed a praagprah taht lokos lkie tihs? When reading, the brain doesn’t actually read the entire word, just the first and last letters. This saves your brain time and energy, allowing you to read faster. But when you force yourself to actually read your writing out loud, you have to look at every word.
3. Have someone else read over it.
A second pair of eyes never hurts. Since you wrote the content, you know what you were trying to say and may miss holes in logic or a missing word. Someone reading over your writing for the first time will have a fresher view than you.
4. Double check all facts.
A misspelled name, a few transposed numbers or a foreign word without an accent may be all it takes to incite a libel case against you. Go over every hard fact with a magnifying glass (and multiple Google searches just to make sure)!
Proofreading is just as important as content creation in the world of PR. Don’t underestimate it.