Using the right words certainly creates a good impression
Hi there. I'm certainly no genius or professional wordsmith. And that is why, after reading a post on this site, I installed a spelling, grammar and punctuation checking tool. I'm using a product called Grammarly, and am not 100% happy with it, but I know that it has saved me many, many, times from publishing content that is filled with mistakes.
I'm not here to promote Grammarly and I do know there are other tools that are as good as, if not better, than this one. What I wish to talk about is the value gained by presenting any written material in the best possible English.
I'm not from America, but have set up my spell checker to American English, as I suspect that this is where most of my traffic will come from. I am constantly being corrected on spelling as we spell words differently in New Zealand than they do in America. But that is OK!
I am amazed at how often I read blogs that have taken considerable time and effort to prepare and yet it seems that the writer has forgotten to push the WA spelling/grammar checker or the WordPress tool. Do people not check their posts once they are published?
Why bother posting something if it is hard to comprehend. I think many potential customers will be put off if the content is hard to follow. They will consider the site to be unprofessional.
I know not all of us speak English as a first language, and that makes the writing of content more challenging for those that don't. I respect those of you who are using English as a second or third language and have the balls to take on the challenge of creating a website to promote that which you are passionate about. If you are going to all of this effort to follow your passion, why not consider taking one more tiny step and hit the spelling/grammar check button. It's right there on the page with you, up in the right-hand corner.
Blessings and love to you all,
Andrew
P.S. Please don't check my spelling and grammar on this post as Grammarly does not work within the WA framework for some reason :-)
Recent Comments
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I use the spelling check in content from WA and then after I published in WordPress I am from not an native English speaking country
Hi. Even as a native speaker, I have to use a spell check as I often make many mistakes when writing. I make more now that I am learning to type faster :-)
Well done Andrew!
Good point, it isn’t going to help you attract and keep visitors coming to your site if you aren’t checking the spelling and grammar.
Although I never would have guessed English was not your first language!
Great post.
KyleAnn
I'm from New Zealand, and English is our official language, but we inherited it from the British, so spell things as they do. Thanks for your comments.
Cheers.
I would never guess from reading this post that English isn't your first language. Nice job.
Debbie
English is my first language. I wrote my book in NZ English which is very similar to UK English, but requires a lot of spelling corrections when writing for the American market. Thanks for sharing.
We agree with you that we all need to check our spelling. Kudos to you for writing so well when English is not even your first language.
It is irksome when one reads a post and it is full of spelling mistakes. It just seems lazy when there are tools to help.
Thanks for your post and rock your week!
Colette and Philip
Hi. I also see many mistakes in peoples writing, and consider so many of them to be unnecessary especially since there is a free spell checker in WA tools. I know the spell checkers are not perfect, especially when it comes to grammatical errors, but they certainly do help.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Andrew
Reading through blogs or website posts created by those who do not speak English or if English is a distant second language I can't help but feel for them.
Like people who are left handed in a right handed world, I have noticed too few tools are available to compensate for that. I am glad you spoke of Grammarly as that program appears to help bridge that gap.
I do wonder - (and this is only a half-baked thought as my attention is currently divided between WA and an NFL game!) for those who have not mastered the nuances of the English language if the spell check is really that helpful.
It offers suggestions for correction but this also requires you to know the language well enough to reply with a correct substitution.
Spell check also has it's own rules - many times it will offer a correction when a correction is not needed.
Just my 2 1/2 cents worth!
"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." - I'll have to follow you for that!
Good point. Often I am given a correction when no correction is needed, so I just bypass it. But as you say, if English is already difficult for some people, then they will not realize that the correction is not needed.
Many thanks for your comments.
I too use Grammarly and love it! So much so that I actually upgraded to premium to get more checking tools. I also have the plugin for Firefox which allows it to check my spelling and grammar on all my comments here at WA. And just realized that for some reason it doesn't work on the blog window itself. Guess I learned something new.
Hi. I also upgraded to what I thought was premium, but they now want more money to upgrade to another level to correct even more mistakes.
Maybe I can justify this next year when I am making money from my writing.
Thanks for sharing.
Odd. I only upgraded once, and that was to Premium. I just checked my dashboard and there are no other upgrades. For me, it's a yearly fee of $69.98 USD. You might still be on the Free account, which will keep prompting you to upgrade to fix more errors unless you're sure you paid them to upgrade. Something isn't sounding right. I'd reach out to Grammarly support to make sure you're getting everything you're entitled to.
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I just use the WA spellcheck.
Yes, good idea. It's so easy to do. Cheers