Writing Tip: Reread

One of the most helpful tools for writing a good piece is to reread it. Out loud. That last part is important. Whisper it to yourself or make it performance art, it doesn't matter as long as you are hearing the words. What may be glossed over in your head will be striking in speech. An awkward sentence, overall flow of the piece, unusual words or phrases – all will pop out. And of course, typos.

A quick reread is good for any document, including technical or legal documents. Even these suffer from the problems above and sometimes can cause chaos with unclear writing. Leaving out the word “not” or a whole sentence when pasting in routine text is bad. You're not doing yourself any favors by being sloppy and your clients certainly will be pleased. Wait, no, they will NOT be pleased. Quite a different meaning.

You really owe it to yourself to take a second look at any of your writing. Think of how much you pour of yourself into your business every day. Any writing you put out there on behalf of your business is defining your business. This is obvious with marketing materials, but what about emails? These, too, define the tone, the message, the personality of your company. Don't sell yourself short with a smll typo or badly worded sentence with awkwardness just to save a minute of reading. (See, it does seem ridiculous, doesn't it?)

Bottom line, if you don't even want to read it a second time, why would your audience want to read it a first time?