I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: Thailand
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 12
I wonder if it might be worth while suggesting to persons submitting stories for a competition such as this, if they could ask a friend to proof-read their work before submission?
It's only natural that some of us think that our first draft must be correct, but there's always the occasional apostrophe which sneaks in where it shouldn't or some folk mix up 'then' and 'than' rather easily..
I like to give as an example the author who stated that he was quite heterosexual, and he'd rather have girls then boys. Talk about greedy!
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
I expect folk to proofread anyway, that goes without saying. I proofread my own material multiple times and still find cock-ups. Not all of our authors have English as their mother tongue, and that causes headaches, too. I do like the greedy example, though.
To proof-read something you've written is hard, no matter what tricks you employ. However, as someone who used to write letter replies professionally the following ought to help.
Always make sure you have enough time. Anything you've written, you see as being what you think you wrote - not what actually is there. Putting 'their' for 'they're' for example, no spell checker invented is ever going to catch that one.
If you ask somebody else to check - who you've never used before, leave an error that you know about in place; although it is my contention everyone makes at least one error. Somebody who says 'no errors' don't ask them again...
Read the article/letter/story out loud to yourself. Sounds odd, will get you funny looks if you are in an open-plan office but does work.
In a word processor, significantly change the font. Anything that helps you see the text through different eyes will help.
Probably more helpful with letters, but do a word search for 'that'. It's perhaps the most over-used word in the English language and tends to make the prose sound as though one is preaching. If deletion does not change the meaning of a sentence, consider doing just that.
It's is a contraction of 'it is' and does not denote possessiveness, or the plural of it. Probably the most common error with an apostrophe.
There are other points, but those few should help.