With a tendency to rant about spelling and grammar I write this to help all budding writers, journalists, bloggers and authors to do their best when it comes to writing and communication.
Except when it comes to spelling differences in languages, such as Australian English as opposed to American English, it is very disheartening to see a well written piece with blatant spelling errors which just make the article look 'sloppy' and shows the author not caring about the reader.
Whilst browsing the net recently I came across some articles (on writing sites) with errors such as, "coming" instead of coming and "dont" instead of don't, the possessive "their" was used instead of there.
As I kept reading there were grammatical errors as well which made me so annoyed I stopped reading what was essentially a good article.
Am I being old fashioned in this era of technology and faster net speeds which call for faster writer? I don't think so.
Writing is a form of communication and if you lose your reader within the first few sentences due to errors then you have lost the skill of communicating your message.
An effective communicator keeps the reader's attention using appropriate dialogue for the subject matter without errors.
Beware of spellcheck.
We all know this is a fantastic tool for picking up spelling mistakes but it will not detect all spelling errors and it is up tot he writer to understand this and take note.
For example, spellcheck will not always detect the "their" and "there" mistake or the "your" and "you're".
A good writer cares about the subject matter as much as their reader and will not compromise the message by making silly errors.