Words are hard, yo. Do you know how many mistakes you can make in even the smallest snippet of content, like an email, blog post, or even a small blurb on your website? Just because something looks good to your eyes, that doesn’t mean it’s actually good, let alone bulletproof. At The Starr Conspiracy, we have a Quality Assurance team to give everything a critical eye before it goes out the door. Yeah, we have actual copy editors who have the fun job of wading through content all day, reading and editing it until it’s flawless.
So what do we look for when we’re reading all this stuff? Here are just a few of the things we keep an eye out for:
- Grammar and punctuation. Whether it’s making sure every comma and semicolon is in the right place, or fixing subject-verb agreement, we keep an eye out for any little grammar boo-boos that might be gumming up the works.
- Clunky writing. Not every sentence can be genius, but when writers try to let awkward, wordy sentences slide, we’re there to keep them in line and offer a second opinion.
- Typos and silly mistakes. Maybe you typed “maximum viscosity” instead of “maximum velocity” or “asses the situation” instead of “assess the situation.” Or maybe you’re a word dropper. Or maybe you don’t know the difference between “breech” and “breach.” Whatever the case, having a trained second set of eyes on your content keeps these embarrassing mistakes from reaching customers or clients.
- Consistency and style. Maybe you don’t care that you used serial commas inconsistently throughout your white paper, but I sure do. I also care that you waffle between writing “useable” and “usable” in your document. If you want to look smart, you need to pick one way of doing things and stick to it. An editor and a style guide can help you do that.
Everyone thinks they’re good-looking and that they have a great sense of humor, right? But how many of those people are actually good-looking and tell great jokes? In the same way, you may think your content is perfect, but if you haven’t run it past a knowledgeable second set of eyes, you could be overlooking some credibility-eroding mistakes.
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