I've been a bit of blog slacker lately, haven't I? Busy days both inside and out of the BDO.
In addition to work, we have our annual July 4 bash here tomorrow, which takes a little planning and prep; my 20th HS reunion is fast approaching and all those communication-ish-related things I volunteered to do are still not done; and we seem to have a pretty constant parade of house guests lined up throughout the month of July, which means extra cooking, laundry and other little bits of work. A lot of tiny stuff that all adds up.
And speaking of the reunion and communication-ish type stuff... we recently sent out a postcard that included all of 70 words. As is my SOP, I sent the copy to our committee via email for some extra eyes (there are six people on the committee, so in addition to mine that's 10 more eyes!). In the past, I have gotten little response other than, "looks good!," usually followed by another proofing on my part that reveals at least one or two typos or other glitches.
This time, someone came back almost right away pointing out a "hear" that should have been a "heard." Great catch! Love it! I then re-read all 70 words slowly and very carefully to be sure nothing else escaped my professional communicator attention.
Then another email: "Fix the 'We’ve haven’t' and you'll be good to go!"
The old eternal truth rears its ugly head: It's impossible to proof your own work. I know what I meant to write, so my brain fills in missing bits and corrects errors for me.
My brain is sort of like Bill Gates in this way - it thinks it's doing something helpful for me, quietly in the background, but in the end, it just messes things up even more.
1 comment:
I worked with a person who was insistent that nobody could help her; if they did, even in the slightest way, it would not be her own work.
Proofreading, for instance; suggestions about layout, for another.
Her stuff looked and read like the junk it sometimes was. One graduation, she put out the Mass booklet and, quite casually and forgetting myself, I offered to proof it. zap! It wouldn't be her work. So I backed off and when it came out, students' names were mis-spelled and there were other errors that I could have caught.
Nobody is less because they send stuff out to be proofed.
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