My name is Jennifer, and I make typos. A lot. A LOT.

In fact, one of the scariest things about starting this blog is that I don’t have a proofreader. So let’s just call it out now - there will be typos and grammatical errors on this site despite my best efforts. And the irony is not lost on me that this site is about communication and communicating effectively, which means being competent at writing/typing and spelling. I’m human. That’s my only excuse.

But since today is National Proofreading Day (#NationalProofreadingDay), I wanted to make sure to take time to:

1. thank everyone who serves as a proofreader (professionally or out of the kindness of their heart) for a writer. You are a true unsung hero!

2. share one of my latest typos and the havoc it created in hopes that you will acknowledge that misery loves company and join me by sharing your typos on thebrainsnacks Facebook page.

3. provide five tips on how to be a better proofreader.

Find someone who will tell you that you have a booger hanging out of your nose, and appreciate them!

Thanks to everyone who has helped proof my work and made me look good by pointing out my errors! I’ve worn glasses most of my life, and while no one has called me four-eyes to my face, I’m sure it has happened. But there are days, lots of days lately, when I actually need five or six pairs of eyes to proof read my work. My thoughts start rolling, my fingers don’t keep up with the pace on the keyboard, and then my brain is kind enough to fool my eyes by mentally correcting many of the errors causing me to miss them altogether.

Interestingly, though, I find it takes a special person to honestly proofread for others. Most people don’t want to appear harsh or judgmental of someone else’s work so they don’t really proofread. Conversely, some people don’t really want their work proofread honestly as they feel pointing out their errors is a personal attack of some kind. So thicken your skin if you want to produce good work, and find yourself someone who won’t hold back with their honesty. Find someone who will tell you when you have a booger in your nose, food in your teeth or TP on your shoe, and love and appreciate them for it!

And to those of you who do that for me in my day job (you know who you are), I appreciate you!

How one little omission sent a Facebook page in a tailspin…or should I say tornado.

If you manage any social media platform, I’m guessing that platform has been a volatile place the past two+ years. I mean, more volatile than normal. COVID has brought the anger, fear and frustration out of a lot of people who have no problem sharing those emotions on government social media platforms. And that’s okay, for the most part. But when there is a break in that negative rhetoric, I think everyone on the page welcomes it.

Here’s a story of such a break, and it involves a typo. I was assisting in another Joint Information Center (JIC) the day we were supposed to get a snow storm. Before I left my office, my team asked if I wanted them to do the snow desk posts (these are posts created from information sent to us by our public works teams who are on the road reporting conditions - more on this in a future blog). Because I’m a control freak, I told them that I could still handle it even though I was not going to be in our office.

And I did. I edited the information on my phone (bad idea), while listening to a meeting (bad idea), and my helpful brain didn’t catch that my intent to replace the word “to” with a dash was unrealized. So, I posted that there were going to be “winds out of the northeast at 810 mph”. It didn’t take long for the comments on the page to blow up and for my team to text me asking “are you sure you don’t want us to do this?” I accepted defeat. But it wasn’t until I got home late that night that I gathered the courage to review the damage I had done. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my team corrected my error with grace, and the comments to my original post forecasting armageddon were gold! People were having fun.

“When I was a kid I walked to school in 1000 mph winds in the snow…” one person wrote.

“Both ways?” asked another.

“We are doomed!”

“We’ll be fine, just drive carefully.”

And the memes! Like I said, gold! I had no idea there were so many Wizard of Oz memes in the world!

What could have gone so wrong, didn’t because we acknowledged we are human. We corrected the error and apologized for the mistake. The social media crowd was forgiving. And we all lived happily ever after…for a few hours, until we posted about Covid again.

So that leads to the real reason you are probably still reading this post - the tips for better proofreading.

1. If you have the time, even just 15 minutes, step away from your draft and do something else. Our brains will fill in words that aren’t really there, and we won’t likely catch all of our misspellings when we are reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading without pause. Get up, take a walk, catch up with a coworker, or start working on a new project. The break from your draft will help you see your work with fresh(er) eyes.

2. Use the speech function in your writing software. Both Word and Pages have a speech function (look under edit) that will read your text. While the speech function won’t catch all your spelling errors - unless they are really bad), it will help you find words you have missed, repeated too often or make it obvious when your train of thought jumped the track.

3. Don’t solely rely on spell check. Spell check won’t catch wrong words that are spelled correctly. For example, to, too and two or their and there will go unnoticed by spell check because they aren’t spelled incorrectly even though you have used them incorrectly.

4. Beware of predictive text. We all know what happens when we text someone quickly and don’t catch when predictive text fails to predict the text we actually mean to type. Enough said.

5. Find a good proofreader. And by that, I mean find someone who understands language, spelling, grammar and isn’t afraid to show it.