In this episode of Elevating Experts, Andy and Louise chat to Captain Obvious about how to effectively proof read you work, but here are some of our top tips:
At all stages:
- Spot spell-checked words
- Carefully read for spelling and grammar
- Read aloud to spot hidden errors
Captain Obvious says “forget the double check rule! Triple checking is the way to go!”
Different ways to quality check your drafts and other work will make sure annoying typos don’t make it through.
Episode Transcript:
Andy: you’ve proudly hit publish on your latest post and your colleague taps you on the shoulder and says
Louise: Andy, did you know you made a typo in that meme?
Andy: Why are the gods against me? I’m Andy Le Roy
Louise: And I’m Louise Poole, and we’re giving you the insights to help elevate you as an expert in your field
[Elevating Experts]
Andy: I’m pretty sure I know where we’re going with this one Louise, but it does seem like I’m responsible for my fair share of little blips on our road to batch completion
Louise: you definitely know where we’re going Andy, it’s time to sit back and have a little listen to our good friend…
[Sting: Captain Obvious]
Louise: hey there Captain Obvious, it’s lovely to see you again!
Captain Obvious: well hello there Louise, I didn’t think I’d see you again quite so soon, what have you done this time?
Louise: No, no, captain obvious, it’s Andy this time… he seems to have a little issue with typos in memes at the moment…
Captain Obvious: well as much as I like the lad, I’m really not surprised. Let’s give him a little bit of education on how to spot those errors
Louise: I feel like it’s really a case of just slowing down and double checking your work, right?
Captain Obvious: slowing down is an excellent piece of advice Louise. If you go a little bit slower while you’re working, you will save yourself a lot of time further down the track. But I’m really not such a fan of double checking
Louise: what? Captain Obvious doesn’t double check his work?
Captain Obvious: No. I triple check my work!
Louise: oh! Now I get it!
Captain Obvious: when you’re drafting your work, that’s the perfect time to triple check what you’ve written. For every line that you write, there’s bound to be a little mistake that creeps in that you don’t spot while you’re in the creative flow
Louise: so why wouldn’t I just double check what I’ve written?
Captain Obvious: on the first time ‘round I would glance over it and see if there are any obvious things that have been picked up by the spellchecker and grammar check. On the next run through I have a very focused read of what’s on the page to see if anything stands out.
Louise: surely that’s enough after you’ve done that?
Captain Obvious: well, you might think so my dear, but Captain Obvious also likes to read it out aloud in one final check. It’s really quite amazing what you pick up on the page when you start to talk it out aloud
Louise: so that’s that, all checked and perfect at that point, yeah?
Captain Obvious: maybe, but that’s not the last time you are going to be working with that text. What about when you copy and paste it over to one of your graphics?
Louise: I’ll double check to make sure it’s transferred correctly?
Captain Obvious: Ahemmmmmm
Louise: trrrriple.. check… got it
Captain Obvious: always triple cheque your work at whatever stage you are, because as soon as you hit that publish button, if there is a mistake you are going to have to go right back to where that mistake originated and correct it and do all of those steps again
Louise: yes, we did have a case like that recently where we got all ex...
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