Content tip: spellcheck*

Sometimes it's the easy things that are the hardest to do. When it comes to spellcheck, never - ever - forget to check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. I don't care if it's a text, an email, a blog post, a Tweet - check your spelling. Nothing makes you look less professional than a spelling error or misplaced punctuation in your content.

But hey, we're all human, right? We make mistakes, all the time. I sure do, and I'm pretty uptight about getting things right. So how do I avoid those mistakes? By looking for them, and fixing them! Hopefully the fixes happen before I press send or publish. But if I miss a mistake, I do whatever I can to fix it pretty quickly.

When I'm working on content, where possible I compose my content then let it sit. I walk away, get a glass of water, step outside. I come back to the content after I've had a break and take a look with fresh eyes. At that time I read over what I've written at least twice. On the first review I'm looking for any obvious mistakes - spelling errors, extra words, double punctuation. On the second review I'm reading for flow - does this content sound right as it is written? I'll often read that content aloud, as slowly as I can, to ensure the cadence and organization of the copy is in line with what I'm trying to achieve.

Then I take another break.

I check my email, return a phone call, attend a meeting. Then the content should be ready to go, right? Nope. I'm going to review it a final time. This time I read the content backwards. I go from the very bottom of the content, reading from right to left, looking for mistakes. I do this because, after years of employing this copy editor's trick, I can still find mistakes. We are so close to the words that we write that we don't actually see all of the words when we're reading our copy - our brains allow us to skip words or phrases because we know what's meant to be there. Reading the copy backwards gives our brains a little reset so we can truly see what's in front of us.

Now, we don't always have the luxury of time to get content out, especially when it's an email or social media post. But I still recommend you reread whatever you're composing, at least twice, to check for errors. Use the tools you have at your fingertips like spellcheck* or autocorrect. Or get a friend or colleague to take a quick look at your work before you publish - their fresh eyes on your work will see things your eyes missed.

Your attention to detail may not be noticed. People aren't going to come up to you and congratulate you for your thorough proofreading (sad, but true). But by paying attention to these little things with a big impact - spelling, grammar, punctuation - you're going to have people pay attention to the message in your communication, which is what you want them to do in the first place.

*Spellcheck. Do not get me started on the issues with built-in spellcheck software or, my nemesis, autocorrect. They are handy and useful and do spot things you might not have considered. But you should still rely on your own knowledge - artificial intelligence is still artificial and for some reason cannot catch on that there is a difference between the possessive and the plural. This is not a birthday gift from The Bannon's, this is a birthday gift from the Bannons!!!