You Are Your Own Online Editor

One of my "pet peeves" regards people who seem to feel that writing for the web doesn't need to be edited, spell-checked or proofread. These same people often feel the same way about email. Just dash something off and click send.

They confuse the speed of the transfer medium (the Net) with the speed of the communication medium (writing). Writing is actually a slow medium of communication. Writing gives you time to express yourself in just the right words. It gives you time to think, rewrite, proofread, and spellcheck. It also gives you time to write that flaming rebuttal, then sit back and delete it without sending after you cool off. ;-)

I've seen too many people waxing rhapsodic about the Web as a fast and easy online medium. You want to Express Yourself? Who needs spellcheck? Your writing is so much more "real" when the reader can see that you don't have to answer to an editor.

In their (otherwise excellent) book, Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel refer to a corporate CEO blogger, by saying "his occasional typos and grammar gaffes give the reader a sense of an intelligent executive writing in a hurry". I would prefer a sense of an intelligent executive in a bit less of a hurry — an executive who takes that little bit of extra time to read over his message before he publishes it. If he can't use a spell checker, what else might he be missing?

In contrast, Dave Taylor says

Good grammar, good spelling, coherent sentences, and a valuable point or insight are all important. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I promise you, the better you write, the more your potential customers, clients, partners and investors will be impressed.

[ How Do I Get More Traffic To My Blog ]

You'll find similar advice from Rebecca Blood in her excellent book, The Weblog Handbook. Rebecca mentions, frequently, that weblogs build reputations. Do you want to have a reputation for careful, considered thought? Or for dashing things off willy-nilly? If you're not careful of your writing, what conclusions might readers draw about your content?

The spark for this entry came from reading a posting by Paul Chaney, of the Radiant Marketing Group , a business blog consulting firm. I'll close with Paul's words as a takeaway quote (italics mine).

While you don’t want to sanitize a post to the degree that it no longer reflects your personality, don’t let expediency keep you from making the best presentation possible.

May 16, 2006 in category Weblogs | Permalink

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