Sunday, January 19, 2014

Details, details...

I apologize.
It's not often I write a rant for a blog, but I just have to do this... so please- buckle up & hold on!
Have you ever found yourself on a page or reading a physical article that looked to be highly promising only to end up disappointed by the lack of care the author put into the little details of their blog or article?  
What little details?
Spelling and grammar.

I don't know about you, but when someone doesn't care enough to take the time to spell words correctly or to use proper grammar, it's difficult for me to take them seriously. I'm talking when I expect a bit of professionalism.

I find it hard to justify my heeding the author's advice, taking their challenge, trying their idea or sharing their thoughts if they can't be bothered to make sure their article or blog is polished before publication.

I'm very entertained by George Takei on Facebook and his posts and comments about grammar and spelling. I'm amazed at the number of people who end up looking foolish trying to justify excessive misspellings and horrendous grammar.  Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of auto-correct mishaps, but I go back to edit and correct the error, because I know better! Most people write/type how they speak because this is how the brain works; but I find it extremely hard to think highly of someone who can't differentiate between:
through, thru and threw
their, they're and there
your and you're
know and no
...
...there's a number of others I've seen in excess the past few weeks.  But the final straw came today as I was reading a blog trying to give people budget advice. The blogger starts with an "ad" for people to follow their Facebook page that "over 25,000" already like. The author then goes into the main point, excluding a multitude of helpful information. About halfway through the article, the author misspells three words in a two-sentence span. Not only had they not gone back to correct the error, but the fact that the misspellings were so blatantly obvious (examples listed above) made it clear to me that the blogger just didn't care. It really made me feel like the blogger had their "high traffic volume" and was only trying to build a larger following, so they didn't feel the need to keep up with a semi-professional standard of actually reviewing the post. It was abundantly clear where their priorities sat.

I understand that blogs are peoples way to get ideas out there, that very few who blog are professional writers, that not everyone has had the same level of education, and most certainly not a great number of people find pride in the attention to this kind of detail to even care that these errors can discredit a writer's reputation... but really? Having that many regular readers, how do people not feel the need to take their blogging to the next level of casual professionalism? I find it disappointing and disrespectful that people who have such a large following and are peddling advice don't have the common sense to even edit their posts before clicking the "publish" button, or to go back and review their posts for that matter.
Is it seriously all about people getting their fifteen minutes of fame and not caring about reputation?
What ever happened to taking pride in one's work?
What ever happened to doing a job right?

Now for a bit of humor...

If you've made it here, to the end, I appreciate you letting me get this off my chest.
I have a very small following... but I truly appreciate all five of you. (haha)
Every now and then we need to put things out there that really bother us, even if we know no one (or very few) will read them, so we don't have to think about them anymore.
Thanks!

2 comments:

  1. Venting is good...so is spell check.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, yes it is... until you spell the wrong version correctly... lol! Thanks for your support! ;-)

      Delete