Advice for New Bloggers: Use Spell Check
Posted on January 29, 2008
Advice for New Bloggers is a new regular feature here at Sarah’s Cucina Bella. Inspired by Dine and Dish’s Adopt-A-Blogger event, and written with my adoptee in mind (Hi, Rachel! Click here to check out Fairy Cake Heaven), it appears every Tuesday.
This is a pretty easy, but important, tip.
Use spell check on all of your posts. Having accurate grammar and spelling might seem like a tiny detail but it’s really distracting to be reading a blog with all sorts of spelling errors and poor grammar (Thanks, Patti, for helping me see the light on this one!). If you pay attention to your spelling and grammar, then readers will judge your site on the merits of your writing and your recipes. I don’t know about you, but that’s a judgment basis I don’t mind.
Coincidentally, it took me quite a while to really buy into this point. “Why bother?” I thought. But when I started to consistently check my spelling, I realized that I was also putting more time into what I wrote and turning out better posts. And ultimately, I would trade those 20 seconds of spell checking for better blogging any day.
What’s that you say? Your blog interface doesn’t have a spell check feature? That is so not an excuse. Download and use Mozilla Firefox to surf the net and you will have a built-in spell check that will highlight misspelled words as you go. In fact, it just caught me misspelling “spell check.”
*Sigh.* I never said I was perfect.
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5 Responses to “Advice for New Bloggers: Use Spell Check”
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Hooray! I 100% agree that it’s very distracting to come across all kinds of spelling and grammatical errors in an otherwise interesting post. I actually write my posts in a word processing program that underlines the mistakes for me so I can correct them before posting, then copy and paste. Unfortunately, spell check won’t catch those nagging to/too, their/there/they’re and your/you’re mistakes that are all too common. For that one you need to consult something like a Strunk and White. But everyone should be aware that even the most experienced of writers make mistakes like to/too when they’re typing too fast, and be alert for them. Thanks for reinforcing the need for good spelling and grammar!!
I’m sooo bad about this. My prime blogging time is well after the kiddos go to bed. So when I’m writing, I’m also dealing with my eyes rolling back in my head. I can usually find grammar mistakes or missing words when I read back over my posts the next day. Very embarrassing.
I use spell check but still find there can be problems – yet I find one of the advantages of the net is the ability to update a post and so I go in and change a typo when I see one as it bugs me to see them
That’s a great point, Johanna!
[...] comment on a previous addition of Advice for New Bloggers sparked this little tidbit. Johanna mentioned that one of the advantages of writing on the internet [...]