The Power of Proofreading

In case I haven't yet shared this tidbit, I'll let you know that I love to write. I have since I was a wee youngin.'

That being said, I knew when I was very young that writing was what I wanted to do as a career someday. It still is-- thus why I'm going to go to grad school for journalism, and hopefully make a name for myself as a writer. Also the reason why I write whenever I can: two websites, a university newspaper, this blog, my journal.

The more I write, the more I realize that this isn't just something I like to do. As cliché as it sounds, I really feel as though writing is something I'm meant to do.

This may sound as though I'm just tooting my own horn but, when starting in second grade every teacher you have lauds your writing ability and tells you that you should do something with it, I feel as though there has to be something more to it than just ego.

Now, as I continue to write and branch out into different writing styles and mediums, the more I become aware of how I write: my voice, tone, grammar, word choice/usage, all of it. This, coupled with the fact that I am constantly reading due to a) being a bookworm who thoroughly enjoys reading and b) being an English major, makes me extremely critical when it comes to the written word.

This caused my semester in the required intro-level college writing course to be a miserable experience. It consisted of peer editing a lot of papers that were either just flat out poorly written, or (even worse) clearly showed that their writer had a lot higher opinion of their own writing quality than it actually warranted.

Anyway, my critical eye has led to me possessing a general frustration toward much of what gets written today. My family has often been entertained at my expense as I suddenly let out sighs or groans of exasperation or jump up to grab a pen to correct errors while I'm reading.

It doesn't matter what I happen to be reading, be it a book (really, you'd be surprised how many errors manage to sneak into books during publishing), magazine, or newspaper, 9 times out of 10 I will find at least one error. What makes this so bloody frustrating?

The fact that these publications go through editors and copy-editors! People are paid to correct any mistakes and make the writing a perfectly polished piece, and yet blatant errors still manage to slide through!

Granted, copy-editors aren't always reliable. Whenever I have an article published, I always compare it to the original piece that I submitted, just out of curiosity to see what might have been cut. On more than one occasion, I've read articles of mine that were published with errors--spelling, a word or two missing--that were not in what I submitted. Seriously.

I realize that most people don't have someone designated to be their editor. Thus, we have to be our own editors.

Proofreading, my dears, is the key.

When we write, it's easy to rush through and not give what we've written a second look. But that second look is crucial. Spelling errors, grammatical errors, words that look similar used in the wrong context-- all of that is damaging to the credibility of the writer. It takes away from the overall quality of a good writer, and makes a poor writer look even worse.

Personally, as soon as I encounter an error in what I'm reading, my focus on the piece is gone and I'm instead keeping my eyes peeled for the next mistake. And I know I'm not the only person who does this.

So please, if you're going to write something, I don't care how insignificant it may seem, make sure you pay attention to what you're doing.

And always remember the power of proofreading.

The Future Freaks Me Out..But Not as Much as it Used To

Oh my goodness. I am growing up. Eep! Admittedly, I am scared to death of the future (refer to one of my previous posts...). However, in the last few days I have decided to face that fear head-on in order to try to conquer that fear. What have I been doing? Well...

In my Business and Professional Writing class we've been working on writing our résumés. This is something my mom attempted to get me to do this past summer...and the summer before...and the summer before that, too. Not being one who is too inclined towards being a grown-up...Hold on. I'm going to digress for a moment.

I've noticed that both in these musings (few as they've been so far) and my daily speaking, I make a lot of references to growing up/being a grown-up. I feel as though I should take a second to clarify what I mean by that. In my opinion, there is a HUGE difference between being an adult and being a grown-up. An adult is what you become when you turn 18, and are seen in the eyes of the legal system as no longer being a minor. Adult, however, is NOT the same as grown-up. I see grown-ups as being people who have real responsibilities in life, are fairly dependent on just themselves, and likely have responsibilities for someone other than themselves as well. Not the most in-depth explanation, but I want to get back to the point I was previously going towards, so this will have to suffice for now.

As I was saying, not being too inclined towards being a grown-up, I of course put off the résumé writing. Now that I have been required to write it, though, it's kind of fun going through and finding all the things that make me awesome. A bit narcissistic, perhaps, but it's a nice little ego boost. It also makes me feel like I'm floundering a lot less than I discussed in a prior post. For what I want to do/the type of job I'm looking for, I'm actually pretty qualified. Writing up my résumé has actually helped me breathe a sigh of relief about the future. Let's face it: we all know what our academic and job experiences have been, we know where our skills/strengths are but, at least for me, just having them in thought form made them seem insignificant and too theoretical. Putting them on paper has made them actually have meaning and worth, which is what I was so scared of lacking.

I have also made myself finally dive into the grad school search. This is another thing I was terrified of doing. The whole grad school concept fills me with an -almost- inexplicable trepidation. The fear that comes from looking at grad schools is two-fold: 1. I know grad school is continuing education, but it just seems so much more of a grown-up thing than I feel (well, felt) ready for. Undergraduate education is seen as this time to learn, of course, but also a time to experience life and goof around before you actually have to be a grown-up, whereas grad school is hunkering down and driving yourself towards your career. That's intense! 2. Moreso than that even is the matter of not knowing where I'm going to end up. Specifically, not knowing where I'm going to end up in relation to a certain someone.

I know that probably sounds completely naive and girly and lame and like I'm planning my future around one person, but that's not really the case. I'm going to leave out details entirely, but let me just say that we had to go through a LOT to finally get to the point we're at now, and I'm just scared of us ending up on opposite ends of the country next year and having everything that it took so long to build just fizzling out. It's not the greatest thought, but one that must be faced.

While looking at grad schools, I discovered that there are only around 60 journalism grad programs in the country (and that number isn't JUST journalism...it includes mass communication as well). From those 60, I have managed (in 2 days!) to get it narrowed down to 15 (well, 14 journalism and one professional writing program) that I'm actually interested in finding out more information about. Not too shabby, eh? The thing that's weird though is that the more I research schools/programs, the more excited I get about it. It's still really scary to think about, but in that good way. Especially when I read about the master's program at Syracuse...it sounds like my utopia beckoning to me. That's all I will say about that for now.

So that's where I currently stand on all that. Feeling pretty good about stuff, woot. Hopefully I manage to stay in such a positive view of everything...I have a tendency to psych myself out, or to find some minute possibility of what could be negative that ends up pulling me down. But no! I am determined to continue feeling good, dammit!