Its surprising how badly written so many blogs are. Almost all blog editors come with at least a basic spellcheck. If you use Firefox you don’t even need to rely on the editor for a spell check as its built right into the browser.
So how is it that blogs go out without being spell-checked. Nothing turns me off more from reading a blog than poor spelling and poor grammar. Yes I know, I sound like your High School English teacher. But blogging is not a lesser form of writing. Bloggers are and should be taken seriously, not least of all by themselves. Spending a few minutes checking your writing for spelling mistakes, typo’s and grammar errors is definitely worth it if you are serious about having someone read your work on a regular basis.
Think of blogging more as a writing career and less as a hobby, even if you have no intention of writing for a career or even blogging for money. Remember once you commit something to the web it is out there for all to see. Whether it is your college professors, current employers or prospective employers. If you can’t be bothered to spend some time on your writing what message does that send?
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I don’t want to be a grammar nazi, but that post is missing a few commas, has a fragment as a sentence, and one sentence seems to be missing a word that would help to make it flow better.
There are a lot of errors that Word or FF’s spell-check just don’t catch. Yes, anything you write should be proofread, but it’s hard to always see your own errors. I have to write professional reports for work, and even after proofreading 3-4 times, I sometimes miss something. Hell, even my boss misses it sometimes too.
But I agree, people should spend a little bit more time on their writing, myself included.
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I think it was Ice Cube that sang, ‘you better check yourself before you wreck yourself’. Or something along those lines.
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I have to proofread my blogs everyday, its the biggest issue i have on all my sites.
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Most bloggers don’t even take the time out to do spell check. If their are more then telling grammar mistakes on a post, I don’t even bother wasting my time reading the rest of the post because it shows a lack of effort.
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I notice that there are a lot of popular blogs that have many spelling mistakes on them. It does bother me but they are still popular and people love them so you have to think, does the average reader really care a lot about spelling mistakes? I mean, sure it has to have readability but does it necessarily have to be perfect?
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lcd Reply:
January 11th, 2009 at 1:28 am
I consider myself an avg reader, and spelling/grammer absolutely matter to me. However, if you’re a well established, popular blogger with tons of great insight, you get cut lots of slack. If you’re a newbie blogger, you get no slack. My opinion only.
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Good point though regarding Firefox and its built in spell checking feature. Of course, it won’t catch everything, but it’s still a great way to have typos pointed out to you on the fly. Oh, and I find my typos increase quite a bit when I’m rushing, and when I’m tired. :O
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I agree. Checking ourself is a good habit.
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I guess it also depends on the niche… For example, for a technical blog providing source code examples etc, the spelling and grammar are secondary to the technical content. Many great technical bloggers from east European countries and Latin America probably don’t speak good English or write well.
Even some of the pro-bloggers like Shoemoney and JohnChow do not possess any great English
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I like the title of the post….. a rapper i know says, “Check yourself like you’re playing chess alone.” I always find it funny.
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