The skill of writing sound work is barely a skill at all. I
would argue that writing sound work is actually just that; work.
If you want sound, clean copy, you need to put in the time.
You know that old saying, “life is like a sewer, you get out what you put in.” Something
like that.
This time you put in is generally from rereading and rereading
your work, so much so that you could read it without even looking. Once you get
to that point, you need to have someone else look at it. You could be reading
it and because you know your piece so well, you’re filling in the blanks where
there are mistakes (look I rhymed).
Hand the piece over to a close friend who you know will be
honest, and is strict when it comes to the rules of grammar (you know, that
person who always corrects the mistake on your Facebook status).
Once they read it over, you should read it over again. If
you have yet to read it out loud, do so! That is when you pick up a lot of
mistakes. I mean, if you want sound
copy, it makes sense to sound it out,
right? If it sounds good, chances are it’s grammatically correct, or at least
close.
Even after that, there can still be mistakes. This is a good
time to call in the big guns, just to make sure. It seems obvious, but if you
are writing on a computer, USE SPELLCHECK! It doesn’t pick up everything but it
can pick up a lot. Better safe than sorry. Something like this could make it into the newspaper, and it's difficult to change words that are in a news paper, trust me...
Now, if you put the time in, you should be ready to post
your beautiful blog about “writing sound work” on the World Wide Web.
Funny, that’s what I’m doing now. Better go through my steps…
if there are any mistakes in this it will be embarrassing.
Yup. Caught a few. That was a close one!
