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Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)

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Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)

#42
Here's the game changer no one has brought up, ChatGPT. You can ask it to proofread your work and point out the changes. You have to be explicit and ask it not to rewrite your text. It will catch typos, missed commas and periods. It does a very good job.

But it doesn't end there you can ask it to re write it and improve it. You decide how much editing it will do for you.

I've never done much writing primarily because I can never be sure how many typos will get through. I'm a horrible proofreader. I feel more confident now and will be doing more writing since I now have a proofreader.

Re: Why it’s so hard to catch your own typos (2014)

#43
post #23

> The reason we don't see our own typos is because what we see on the screen is competing with the version that exists in our heads Which is why reading text backwards can help to find typos, or so I've heard. (Typos tend to jump out at me, even in my own writing.)

I can second this; from my experience reading text backwards greatly helps with finding typos. The reason for this is presumably that in this way it is easier to force our brain to look at every single word in isolation. In normal (forward) reading we process more than one word at a time.
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