A plea on behalf of your reader

Imagine, if you will, you have agreed to bake a cake for your friend's birthday - or some other occasion.

You are not as confident as you might be, because you have not baked many cakes in the past, but you understand the principles involved and have a great recipe to guide you. You also have all of the necessary ingredients assembled, so you are good to go.

On the big day, you find yourself a little short of time, so you arrive at your friend's house with a bowl of beautifully mixed and blended ingredients. All they need is some time in the oven, which means the cake will be perfect - just as all the guests have left and gone home!

What on earth does this have to do with you and your readers?

Like most people nowadays, I scan and read a lot of material on websites, Most of it is for my own benefit, either information, education or entertainment.

As a member of the WA community, I do read some sites I would not usually visit, simply with the aim of giving some useful feedback. Many of these provide me with some unexpected gems.

Unfortunately, there are others which are just like the half-baked cake, in the example above. When I read a page which has more than one or two typo mistakes, spelling errors, or plain bad grammar, I believe that the author is doing him/her self, and the readers, a great disservice.

Even great writers need to re-write and revise their work. Earnest Hemmingway was reputed to edit and re-write every piece of work seven or eight times. While we are not trying to produce great literature, we owe our readers content which is presented in a clear and understandable fashion.

There are two possible explanations for badly written content: the first is lack of knowledge. This in itself can be forgiven (particularly those writing in their second language), but there are so many tools available to help, a little time and effort can bridge the knowledge gap.

(As I write this in the WA Rapid Writer, the spell checker has corrected me a few times already).

The second possibility is carelessness, which cannot be forgiven. If you do not care enough, why should your reader?

We here at Wealthy Affiliate are all in pursuit of excellence; most have a message they wish to share and benefit others. We who need help can learn how to get it, I believe very few, if any, questions are ignored.

Let us all take the opportunity to show readers the best efforts we can produce and not expect them to put up with a half-baked cake.