Proofread and Edit

Part of our assigned reading this week was "Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age" by Dr Axel Bruns.  I really struggled to read the article as it just was not connecting with me.  It seemed almost like the words just would not get past some barrier of noise in my head.  In frustration, I pulled all the text out of the PDF and pasted them into Word so I could have my computer read the article to me in the Review tab.  That was when I found my problem.

Even allowing for the differences in spelling between American English and Australian English, there were over twenty words misspelled, and a number of made-up words beyond the 'produser' word that was the focus of the paper.  There were many punctuation errors, and a few capitalization errors.  Most significantly, Dr. Bruns does not know how to use parenthesis at all.  There were whole sentences with parenthesis, and one time even two sentences.  In one case he used them so many times he created an 88 word sentence.

As a professional instructional developer, I like to think I use words better than most people but time and again I find I have made a mistake in how I articulate the concepts within my curriculum.  The salvation to that is two-fold.

One is to use the tools presented in your word processor.  They are there to support you and help you create a better product.  If you have wording that is unique to your audience, then use 'ignore all' or add them to your dictionary.  In my office, nonverbal is one word without hyphen, watchstander is one word, and we never use weak hand or strong hand (firearms training).  I fight all the time with Microsoft knowing what I want to do better than me, but I still use the tools even if I do not always agree with them.

The second salvation is to have someone else read your work before posting.  We are all subject to 'inattentional blindness,' where we see what we expect to see and do not see what is really there.  Below is a link for a study on police officers with inattentional blindness.  In aircraft maintenance, I have seen it many times with people not seeing a tool missing from a tool box or not seeing something that should not be in the aircraft.  It is very common when proofreading your own writing to miss errors because your brain will insert the missing word automatically.  Having someone else read your work helps tremendously.  Other options include the "Read Aloud" option on the review tab in Word, or just reading out loud to yourself.

Yes...this was a bit of a rant.  But really...an 88 word sentence?





Inattentional blindness for a gun during a simulated police vehicle stop