The importance of a full stop
A newstory that caught my eye this week was about Shropshire Council fining people for parking when the sign actually said that no parking restriction was in place. Why did those people park there? Because the sign actually said ‘No parking enforcement in operation’, instead of ‘No parking. Enforcement in operation.’ Now four people will have to spend time claiming their money back, which seems a tad unfair seeing as they were just following what the signs says.
When the person responsible for the signs was asked how the error had happened, the answer was the speed at which the signs were created. It seems that having to create the signs quickly meant that they threw out the usual checks (I’m assuming there are usual checks) and no one bothered to proofread the text for the signs before they went off to be created. The result? A sign that said the exact opposite of what they meant to say, extra time and cost having those signs reprinted, and even more time and cost in getting the old ones taken down and the new ones put up. And to top that off, there will be a few red faces in that council office, I’m sure.
Schoolboy error? Yep, pretty much. But that’s what you have proofreaders for. Everything, literally every single thing you write must be read by someone else before you post it to your blog, push it out on social media or upload it to your website.
I always put my writing to one side for at least a day before I proofread it, then I get someone else, usually Mark, to proofread it too. This is essential because your brain is really good at inserting things it thinks should be there when they’re not. So, if I’ve been writing something, I kind of know what I want it to say and my brain puts in any missing words. Leaving it for a day allows my brain to forget that I know it and see it with fresh eyes. Getting Mark to read it means someone who has no idea, apart from assumption, what I wanted to write is checking that all the required words are present and correct.
I’ve been writing for years and yet I can still miss out a ‘the’ or ‘be’ from a sentence and not even notice. It’s not about how much you know or how experienced you are, it’s simply about how the brain works.
Moral of the story? If you want to avoid unnecessary time, cost and embarrassment, proofread, proofread and probably proofread again.
