Comments on: 9 (+1) Tips For Writing User-Friendly Content

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:15:32 +0000

yep, you’re right. typo on my own part. All fixed. Thanks Vera!

By: Vera Battemarco

Vera Battemarco — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:51:37 +0000

Hi,

Thank you for the great articles! I am a subscriber but must confess don’t always have the time to read all the articles. Wanted some information, searched Google and here I am! Guess I should read all the articles when they arrive!

On the subject of typos, on the "Spammy Text" paragraph above it reads:
"Never hide content on the page, but us it effectively as a sales tool."
Shouldn’t it be "Never hide content on the page, but use it effectively as a sales tool."?

See, I paid attention!

Thanks again!

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:32:39 +0000

I couldn’t agree more! Every now and I find myself going pack to stuff that is several years old… prepared to cringe at the “greenness” of it, only to be suprised. Sometimes I even think, “if only I could write that well now!”

By: Bill Hilton

Bill Hilton — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:18:31 +0000

I think it’s surprising some of the benefits a time-lapse can bring beyond the operation of picking up typos. Sometimes, I’ll write something that comes really hard, feels terrible and makes me file in in disgust when I get to the end. Then I come back a week later, and it’s a lot better than I thought. Conversely, something that just flows off the keyboard and leaves you with a warm glow can seem empty and lame when you revisit it objectively.

I guess it’s an illustration of what a subjective business writing is!

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:33:30 +0000

Bill, Thanks for that. Both excellent points, though I don’t know if a full week is necessary, but a couple of days will do anybody good. While I don’t have all of my blog posts reviewed (I do the “big” ones) I do wait several days and then go back and edit before finally posting. I’m amazed by not just the spelling and grammatical errors I find but that I often find much better ways to word things too!

By: Bill Hilton

Bill Hilton — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:07:56 +0000

An interesting one here is the issue of typos. You’re dead right that a site should be free of them. Problem is, it sounds like one of the easiest tasks (”yeah, I’ll just have a run through to make sure there are no typos..”)

In fact, it can be a complate nightmare. Professional writers are often the worst people for finding mistakes. The biggest problem of all is finding mistakes in your own writing. It’s very difficult to properly read copy you’ve written immediately after you’ve written it - your eye tends to fall off the line and your brain just fills in the gaps from memory.

So the two bits of follow-up advice I’d give, if you’ll permit me, are:

(1) Ideally, get someone else to copyedit your writing.

(2) If that’s not possible, leave at least a week between the writing and the editing.

I bet - I just bet - there’s a typo in what I’ve written above. I’m not going to toothcomb it, just to make the point