I am a horrible speller. Yes, I said horrible, and I mean horrific. I am uncertain the reasons why but spell check is my friend. When I write a blog post I spell check and proofread every time.
As I have said on this blog before quality of content is important to me. I will post when and what I want but I want to produce some level of quality content. I have a sense as I write a post that a certain value of content should be reached.
I have established that I strive for a level of excellence but more often than not I fall short. I always find typographical errors in the form of misspelled words and left out words.
I seem to always leave out words. Always! I can read a post 10 times but the moment I have released it to the wild I find a left out word.
I published a post titled “Down with FriendFeed Etiquette.” I had worked on this post for quite sometime. I wrote the bulk of the writing last week and had done the research weeks before that. Despite the effort in crafting a post I still have numerous errors in it. I found links that do not work, words that were missing, and sentences that simply made no sense. The spelling was correct in this case. Well, maybe I did not find any spelling errors.
Trusted Editors
The best candidates for proofreading my blog posts would be trusted individuals.
Friends and family make great although unsuspecting proofreaders and potential editors. But, in this case I am looking for some expertise in the subject matter of the post.
Friends and Family can do a great job at simple editing. They can find missing words and assist with general editing.
Proofreaders for Hire
Here is my proposal. If you are a blogger and would be willing to proofread a blog post I will give you link credit as a proofreader.
Interested? Sign up as a proofreader and when I get ready to post I will email you several hours in advance. As a proofreader you promise confidentiality of the post content until released.
Then your job as the proofreader would be to look for spelling, grammar, and general nonsense in the post. I am looking for the following questions to be answered:
- Are there any spelling and grammar issues?
- Do the post links work?
- Do the sentences make sense?
- Can you understand what I am talking about is it clear?
As for style and general sentence structure my style is obviously my style. I am looking for help proofreading not rewriting or critique.
After proofreading you the reader would email me what you found. If you were helpful I will include a line at the bottom of the post stating:
Proofread by: Joe of Joe’s Blog, John of John’s Deer, David of TechBlog, & Mary of TechStuff
Each name will be linked to each blogger’s blog. Would you like to join my proofreading squad?
I will choose arbitrarily a squad of 5 people or so. If you would like to try leave a comment on this post.