Why Proofreading Matters

A lot of people look at proofreading the way men look at dusting. It’s something they suppose some people care about, but, really, what’s the big deal? Who’s even gonna notice?

They dash off business letters, emails, blog posts, reports, web content, etc, with no serious concern for correctness. Often, it’s only when something is going to be printed - at significant cost - that they pay much attention to spelling, punctuation and grammar. That’s when they hire someone (like me!) to ‘make sure the spelling and stuff is okay.’

That’s if we’re lucky. Often - far more often than you may realise - glaring errors make it into glossy brochures, annual reports, even expensive signage designed to illustrate a company’s professionalism!

Call me pernickety. Call me pedantic. Call me a picker of nits. Call me, as many people do, a stickler. Fine. I am. And for good reason.

Because I want to impress upon you the simple truth that the ‘little things’ like spelling, punctuation and basic grammar actually matter.

One of the reasons many people don’t agree that these things are important is that they’ve been getting away with sloppiness for so long. They go around saying things like:

• ‘I never proofread, and no one’s ever complained.’
• ‘I’m a lousy speller, but everyone understands what I’m saying.’
• ‘I hated English in school, all that stuff about predicates and subjunctives. Who actually cares about that stuff?’

Okay. Maybe they don’t actually go around saying these things, but they’re thinking them. This is partly a defence mechanism - they think they’re bad at proofing, so they make excuses not to do it. But it is also an attitude that is rapidly spreading because of the proliferation of rapid communication modes such as texting and email.

As writing becomes increasingly fast and informal, we expect to be forgiven for the ‘little errors’ that may creep into our writing.

And, sadly, we are. Most of the time. Most of the time, people either don’t notice or don’t care if we confuse they’re with their, or if we offer ‘used car’s’ for sale.

But some of the time - again, more often than you may realise - readers do notice, do care. But you’ll almost never hear about it. Even I am not persnickety enough to run around pointing out every error I see to the offending party. (I do, far too often for my wife’s taste, point them out to her, though. Just to blow off steam).

Good Manners

Proofreading carefully to remove as many errors as possible is akin to good manners. When you have guests over to dinner who talk with their mouths full and eat with their elbows on the table, you certainly never call them on it. They never know that you think they’re kind of slobby. But you do think it. And it has an effect on your relationship, however subtle.

Similarly, when someone visits a website full of ‘typos’ and misspellings, they rarely point the errors out to the webmaster. But they go away thinking a little less of the company or individual who has the site.

When your emails tend to have silly mistakes in them (’form’ instead of ‘from,’ ‘teh’ for ‘the,’ ‘ect’ for ‘etc,’ etc.) you slowly build a reputation for imprecision, sloppiness, ignorance.

And you probably never know about it. It’s like having bad breath. Ugh.

The Solution

And it’s so easy to fix. Proofreading simply means taking a few extra moments to look over your work, checking for the kinds of dumb mistakes that make you seem dumb. If you’re not sure how to spell a word, take the time to look it up.

(In proofing this post I had to double-check the word ’defence.’ As an American - we spell it with an ’s’ - living in Europe, I sometimes have to remind myself which spelling of a word is right for which audience. So I check! It took about four seconds.)

You don’t have to be a grammatical wizard to vastly improve your work. If you don’t know the difference between ‘continual’ and ‘continuous,’ or can’t tell a relative clause from Santa Claus, no one is going to think you’re a fool. Anyone but a true pedant will forgive an error like ‘I wish I was’ (vs ‘I wish I were’ - it’s the subjunctive mood, in case you care).

The majority of errors are simple, and easy to catch - and these are the errors that people will judge you for making, specifically because they are so simple. They judge you because you didn’t make the effort. You seem lazy, careless.

So. Before you fire off your next email or blog post, take a few moments to scan it for errors. It’s only good manners.