Typos are the bane of my existence. I never seem to be able to escape them. I read over my work 2 or 3 times, and then read it aloud. Over the years , my frustration with these simple and small mistakes have manifested in different ways. Once, I tried to get into an editing class and ended up with a linguistic minor. Other times, I have given up after multiple edits. However, the worst things I have done to deal with this problem are to hide my writing and ignore the problem.
The truth is that as English Teaching Major, it is frankly quite embarrassing to make these mistakes because I lose credibility. Of course, when I think of asking for help, I get stuck with the dilemma of who to ask. Why would you ask a fellow English Major to read your work through? Why would you ask someone who is not an English Major?
These preconceived notions of mine are useless. If I have problems editing my own work, then I am sure that other people are having the same problems as me. I don't want to get B's on my papers any more just because I can't seem to catch all of my own mistakes.
After Ian S Ardern's talk in the Saturday Afternoon Session of General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints, I have "determine[d] to be the master" of my typo problem.
For me this means getting someone to read over my work, and in return I will do the same for them. I know that I simply cannot catch everything on my own.
I think this will also effect how I teach. I know that there will be students who are like me and will not catch simple mistake. The simple mistakes that can easily be fixed with fresh eyes.
I'm the same way. Luckily for me my biggest problem (misspelled words) is usually fixed on the computer, but I'm sure I'll be one of those teachers that always spells things wrong on the board. One trick that you might already have tried is to read your work backwards, word for word. It makes it harder for your mind to replace the typos with what you know should be correct because the sentence doesn't flow when you read it like that. Anyway, it's just a trick you might want to try if you haven't already.
ReplyDelete