Antidote is a great commercial product for that, it's the best I could find in a the market and professionnally the ROI is fantastic.
But if you don't want or can't pay for it, gpt3 is actually also a good proof reader!
Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
11–20 of 44 posts
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#12Because the solution is hidden behind "subscribe to wired to keep reading"! I find reading the text back in a different font often helps, particularly switching from mono-spaced to variable or vice-versa, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps I remember the shape of the words as correct because that is what I just typed, and when all the words have a different shape I'm forced to think about it differently. It is why I of…
Or just changing the textbox width (if possible) like changing the window width.
I noticed this mainly with emails, where after pressing send I would quickly read it again and spot errors that didn't catch before. If you read a text several times your brain "learns" the position and pacing of the ideas, so it skips words. By changing the layout (on emails this happens because the "write" screen is different than the "read" one) the brain treats the text as new.
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#13Because the solution is hidden behind "subscribe to wired to keep reading"! I find reading the text back in a different font often helps, particularly switching from mono-spaced to variable or vice-versa, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps I remember the shape of the words as correct because that is what I just typed, and when all the words have a different shape I'm forced to think about it differently. It is why I of…
> I find reading the text back in a different font often helps, particularly switching from mono-spaced to variable or vice-versa, though I'm not sure why.
A related technique I use with LaTeX documents is to proofread the output PDF. Of course, that only works if you use LaTeX or similar.
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#14Because the solution is hidden behind "subscribe to wired to keep reading"! I find reading the text back in a different font often helps, particularly switching from mono-spaced to variable or vice-versa, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps I remember the shape of the words as correct because that is what I just typed, and when all the words have a different shape I'm forced to think about it differently. It is why I of…
Today we can use very natural sounding TTS. I always validate my text with TTS because any problem just stands out immediately, not just typos.
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#15Slightly unrelated, but when I need to proof read something I listen to it being read aloud by TTS. It's immediately obvious when something doesn't sound right.
Reading it in reversed order, from the end to the start, word by word also helps to discover typos.
You won't find other issues like fluency, repetitions, missed words that way.
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#16I'm curious: what is your way of flagging typos or bad grammar to colleagues? I often just do it without much fluff around it, but sometimes some people think that's harsh or nitpicky, but I really don't think anything bad about them while doing so. Any advice? BTW I'm talking about documents/tickets, not in chats or internal mails or something
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#17I'm curious: what is your way of flagging typos or bad grammar to colleagues? I often just do it without much fluff around it, but sometimes some people think that's harsh or nitpicky, but I really don't think anything bad about them while doing so. Any advice? BTW I'm talking about documents/tickets, not in chats or internal mails or something
My personal policy is not to do it unless someone asks for it. I think it’s an ok way to go about things most of the time. If I have ”skin in the game” with that text and it’s important, I try to nicely ask for a permission to edit things. In my experience nothing pisses any person, including myself more than when someone starts editing my stuff and possibly even changes the meaning of things as they go.
Way in the past I remember the absolute most deadly feelings I got when an actual editor for the first time jumped and killed half of my text before I had done any of my own edits on some website copy.
Writing is highly personal, and others, especially in a basic email, might consider you just excessively nitpicky while focusing on all but the relevant stuff at hand.
The worst thing that the person gets when writing wrong or excessively or whatever is that they will be misunderstood. Eventually it will come back to them in one way or another and they’ll improve and it’s their problem. If someone asks or you ask nicely on the other hand, that’s the way to go, is respectful, friendly and appropriate. Just be careful that they don’t start to keep coming to you with grammar checks :-D
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#18Because the solution is hidden behind "subscribe to wired to keep reading"! I find reading the text back in a different font often helps, particularly switching from mono-spaced to variable or vice-versa, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps I remember the shape of the words as correct because that is what I just typed, and when all the words have a different shape I'm forced to think about it differently. It is why I of…
For code, I review my solution both in the IDE and on the review page (e.g. In github). The different layout and font helps me better spot errors/typos.
Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)
#19I'm curious: what is your way of flagging typos or bad grammar to colleagues? I often just do it without much fluff around it, but sometimes some people think that's harsh or nitpicky, but I really don't think anything bad about them while doing so. Any advice? BTW I'm talking about documents/tickets, not in chats or internal mails or something
Over the years, I have stopped caring about things like these (and many others). Bad grammar in source control, documentation and tickets is very inconsequential in the big business picture.
What is the return on investment, so to speak, in business terms, of getting your colleagues to fix their grammar in internal systems? If they take the time to do so, will business goals be better achieved? Will it bring the company more revenue? Probably not. It might satisfy your perfectionist tendencies but it is not your colleagues' job to do that.