July 11, 2016

I'm not a Grammar Nazi; I'm a Document Control Freak (Editor Versus Proofreader)

Should have snapped a pic of this but I didn't want to look like a psycho (for a change) ... for the record, I NEVER go to Whole Foods but was close and needed cookies for kids and up on their wall is writing and it was HUGE. Something about "great tasting food" and I was physically uncomfortable at the NON-USE of a hyphen in great-tasting as a modifier.
Doesn't all food TASTE like something? But not all food is great-tasting food. I envisioned myself getting a ladder and a paint brush or massive Sharpie and putting in that hyphen. I'm not a Grammar Nazi, because I'm not an editor. I'm a Document and Word Control Freak because I'm a proofreader. The proofreader catches all the tiny junk the editor doesn't catch.
I know if a sentence sounds wonky but I don't get caught up in the anal retentiveness of fixing a sentence that sounds GREAT but which doesn't follow every grammar rule taught by all the English teachers in the world. Instead, I want writing to have energy, voice, personality. And then I fix the stuff like hyphens and semi-colons and extra spaces between words, and even sometimes other formatting issues to make it pretty.
What's my point? Maybe that we all have different strengths ... and that it's okay to hire a proofreader to catch your mistakes. Everybody needs help sometime!

You can find my Fiverr proofreading reviews and a link to my gig here!


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