By Dana P Skopal, PhD

We mostly write on a computer or other electronic devices. So how often do you check or reread what you have written? Do you check word files differently?

Let’s first consider emails. If the message is a friendly email, you may simply press ‘send’ and not check anything. But if your email message contains important information, do you check the content before you send it? Some may just quickly re-read their message, while others may save it as a draft and take time to review their approach. If the content in the email is important, then it is good to check it  –  like proof-reading a printed letter.

However, checking can mean different things to each of us. Some people may focus on spelling, while others may check punctuation. Yet though your message may be grammatically correct, a re-read that examines links between key points may indeed provide an ‘idea-check’ that throws up issues (as your order of points may not be clear).

So the next issue is how do you check your documents – the attachments to your emails? Do you check the wording on the screen or do you print the file out? Many people that I work with actually print out the file if the content is important. Often we can see errors on a page and not on a screen.

Checking for spelling or spacing should be the final check. Indeed, to check the logical order of your content needs to become a part of your drafting/revising stages – before any final edit or proof-read. One process to use is to take your headings and first sentence of each paragraph – and check that they make sense to an independent reader (without the remaining paragraph content).

Actually, one good check for any written document is to have someone with a fresh pair of eyes read the full text. As a writer we often ‘see’ what we think we have stated rather than what wording is actually in our text.

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