For the Love of Editing

Most of my blogging gets done in the early morning. For me, clicking "Post" is not the end, but the beginning. Hours after I've posted my latest blog, I may be in the kitchen drinking tea before I realize that my writing contains a grammatical error. Horror of horrors! I fly to the computer to make a correction before anyone detects my mistake. If I find one problem, I'm likely to find others strewn throughout. Sometimes the tea turns cold awaiting my return, but no matter. I like cold tea, and I love good writing.

Grammar is the least of my worries. In the case of grammar, one betrays only carelessness, unless the mistakes are numerous and form a pattern, in which case ignorance would be the culprit. An even worse scenario involves a logical error, which endangers one's entire argument. A reader that refutes one logical fallacy will conclude, fairly or not, that the entire piece is false.

Bad grammar is so common on the Internet that spambots use bad grammar to mimic human beings. Sometimes, the grammar is so bad as to arouse suspicion. Most humans, even if they are bad at grammar, get the rule about using an apostrophe to form a contraction like "don't." I hope I never see a real person write "dont", particularly in two messages in a row, as a spambot named Kaylee did on my blog.

I find errors even in mainstream media articles. A headline may read, "Vitamin E a Cure for Cancer?" when the research proves nothing of the sort. Adding a question mark to the end of the headline to imply uncertainty does not excuse the exaggeration. As I noted in a previous post, the media is awful when it comes to science. Exaggeration for dramatic effect is common. This leads to skepticism among the public to all scientific claims, such as the one for global warming.

To minimize errors, I believe I am going to start using Microsoft Word to write my blog rather than the web interface. Word has the ability to post directly to a blog, a feature I haven't tried yet. There are key advantages to using a word processor, such as the grammar and style checkers. If you use Microsoft Word 2007, click on the Office button, go to Word options and select Proofing. Under Writing Style, have the program check "Grammar & Style" rather than just Grammar, which is the default.

The Style checker is none other than the distilled wisdom of your stuffy old English professor, who was right about a great many things, as it turns out. Such as the need to avoid sentence fragments. Or not to begin sentences with a conjunction. And remember, avoiding clichés will keep you on the sunny side of life. You can take that to the bank.

Stephen King violates many style precepts in his use of the American vernacular. Sometimes breaking the rules seems to work better, but be careful. King is royalty. As such, he gets away with misdemeanors that would send commoners like us to the Dungeon of the Unread Writer. I may be there already.