Journal #8: Proofreading Mayhem

Taylor Mali has a video that discusses the importance of proofreading. (Parents be warned that it does have some mature content in it.) His entire speech called, "The The Impotence of Proofreading," comically makes fun of those who do not proofread carefully, but it also shows the importance of proofreading. As he talks, he talks like one who did not proofread, only spell checked. So for example, if he really meant the word, "world," he might have said "word" or "worl." However, as comical as it is to talk nonsense and mispronounce or say misspelled words, there is also truth behind it.

Too many people fall under the assumption that if one types a paper in Microsoft Word, then Word will automatically spell check and proof one's paper. This is a big mistake. Word only spell checks misspelled words! It does check sentences and grammar, such as run on sentences or fragments, but it will not check the meaning of the words in the sentence. For example, if one wrote the sentence, "the cat and dog ran about the garden, while m s Mary picked flowers," and they did not proofread the sentence, that person would have a problem. Microsoft Word does not see any misspellings in that sentence, but we know that "m s" should really be "mrs." Microsoft Word does not count single letters as being misspelled. So if someone is typing too fast and makes that mistake and does not proofread it, then they could get points marked off for that particular sentence.

Another problem that occurs is that a person uses a correctly spelled word, but it is not the right use of the word. If the sentence was, "The flower was very pretty, and it smelled good," and someone typed it as, "The flour was very pretty, and it smelled good," the person has a sentence they did not want. The second sentence could make sense, but not as much sense as the first one makes. They could also end up with, "The hour was very petty, and it spelled good." This sentence makes no sense at all. However, if the person did not proofread this, only spell checked it, they would not notice anything wrong. Word does not check meaning of the words in the sentence, just spelling. This is why proofreading is so important!

Remember, spell check on Microsoft Word is not good enough when it comes to reviewing papers!