Everyone could use a buddy
My favourite part of WA is looking at everyone’s sites and leaving comments. Everyone here is so talented and there is a good diversity in topics. It has become my main outlet for surfing. Here are my overall thoughts.
People do so much work, writing excellent content, choosing eye grabbing pictures and posting to social media. I have a little constructive criticism that I offer to myself and all of you.
We need to start proof reading our posts before we post. Are you missing words? Did you use the wrong word by mistake? I am not writing about members who have English as a second language, I am just talking about those of us who are so excited to hit the Publish button that we forget to honestly slow down and proof read.
Consider the value of a proof reading buddy.
We know what we want to say, it is very clear in our minds, to the point that our brain will fill in the missing words for us. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can see that you forgot your introduction and went straight into the review or that what you have written contradicts itself as the piece progresses. Did auto correct change your word to something else completely?
A proof reading buddy should be someone who knows very little about your niche.
You can't assume your reader knows anything about your topic. I always assume that people know what I know because it feels obvious to me. I don’t want to write down to my readers because that is rude. Then, I have a buddy read my work.
My buddy comes back with questions that I need to answer before I can make my point fully. She can have questions that I have never considered before. Questions, who’s answers would make my post much more effective.
A buddy can see directions in a post that you have not thought to develop.
I just read a post by a member about how great WA is. He made good points but he never made the emotional sale. He did not tell me why I needed WA or how it would benefit me. There was no call to action at the end of the article.
He did not ASK FOR THE SALE.
He must have thought that was obvious. I felt like, Oh that is great for him,” moving on. The article was about him or WA and it didn’t connect with me. Bizarre given that I am the kind of person who would sign up at WA! This is something a buddy would have hopefully caught.
You don't want to be in competition with your buddy because that can make you defensive, unwilling to share or jealous. Some people write so well here. A buddy only works when we are willing to listen.
Ideally a proof reading buddy should be as serious about their business as you are.
You don't want to face with the dilemma of having to replace your buddy each month. You also don’t want a partner who’s eyes glaze over at the latest post your bugging him to proof? How effective is that going to be?
When both of you are working online there is a fair give and take. You do a good job for me because you know I will do one for you. We don’t have to worry about bugging each other because the process is reciprocal.
It would be great if we had a thread where we could buddy up with each other here like we do for other things.
Recent Comments
3
Hi there
Well written. Yes, I agree, we can always use an extra pair of eyes.
Peace to you!
Sharlee (Chocolate IceCream)
My thoughts precisely. And so many people in jobs that require a lot of communication are atrocious at getting it write.
Just recently a newspaper did an article on a young girl that fell asleep on the school bus and was trapped for 4 hours. Now the real story was not as much to blame on the bus driver but on others who didn't do their job.
But the sentence (approximately) said 'she was trapped on the bus 4 hours after he had been fired'. All correct words but the completely wrong order. If fired he wouldn't be driving the bus!