Private Writing AssistantWhy can't you see the mistakes in your own writing?
Because you read what you meant to write, not what's on the page. Your knowledge of the text fills in missing words and smooths over typos before you notice them. To catch them, make the text unfamiliar: wait, change how it looks, or read it in a different order.
You know too much
Reading isn't letter-by-letter decoding. Skilled readers use context to predict what comes next and only glance at the details. That's what makes reading fast, and it works well on other people's text, where your predictions are tested against the page.
On your own text, the prediction is the original plan. You know what the sentence should say, so your mind confirms it instead of checking it. A stranger meets every word for the first time. You meet your memory of it.
The mistakes that hide best
- Doubled or missing small words, especially across a line break, where the eye jumps.
- Real words in the wrong place: a typo that happens to spell another word, so a spell checker accepts it.
- Half-edited sentences: you rewrote the beginning, and the old ending no longer fits.
- Copied details: the name, date or figure from the last email you reused as a template.
Half-edited sentences are the sneakiest, because they come from careful work. Each half was correct when you wrote it.
We will be able to deliver the order by Friday, assuming the parts arrive on time it will be.
We can deliver the order by Friday, assuming the parts arrive on time.
Make the text unfamiliar
Every trick that works does the same thing: it stops your memory from reading for you.
- Wait. Even ten minutes on something else helps; overnight is better for anything important.
- Change how it looks. A different font, a bigger size, another window, your phone. The new layout breaks the familiar picture.
- Read it aloud. Speaking forces you to process every word, including the ones your eyes skip.
- Read backwards, sentence by sentence. Out of context, each sentence has to make sense on its own. It's the best way to find typos, and the worst way to judge the argument, so do it last.
Check after you edit, not before
Since edits create new mistakes, check spelling and grammar after you've finished changing the text, not along the way. A quick proofread before a big rewrite is time spent on sentences you're about to delete. Our post on how to proofread your own writing puts this order into four short passes.
Why a checker helps here
A checker has the one quality you lack with your own text: it doesn't know what you meant. It reads what's on the page, and it reads the last line with the same attention as the first.
A spell checker looks at one word at a time, so a real word in the wrong place passes. A grammar check that reads the whole sentence can notice that the word doesn't fit. Private Writing Assistant reads sentence by sentence, in 101 languages, and underlines what it finds as you type, so mistakes get caught while the sentence is still fresh in your mind.
Add Private Writing Assistant to Chrome for a second pair of eyes that never gets used to your text. It runs on your computer, so nothing you write is sent anywhere.
