Writing Skills 63 Three Tricks to Reduce Text Errors

Mondo Education Updated on 2024-02-03

From writing news in newspapers to writing official documents in organs, he gradually explored some "internal skills" to reduce text errors.

Read it aloud a few times

Writing an essay is a kind of creation, and reading aloud can make this creation less flawed and more perfect.

I remember one year when the two sessions were held in the city, a senior of the newspaper mistakenly wrote "ancient buildings" as "ancient buildings" when he was writing a manuscript, and made a joke. The seniors wondered: how could they make such a low-level mistake after reading the manuscript several times and checking it many times? One senior editor lamented: "If only I had read it aloud a few times." ”

Is reading aloud really that effective? In fact, after working with words for a long time, you will encounter all kinds of mistakes, except for a few that are caused by lack of ability, many of which could have been avoided but could not have been discovered at the time. The occurrence of these errors has a lot to do with the fact that most people are accustomed to reading silently, that is, only looking with their eyes, when checking the manuscript, because it is very easy to make people tired. If you read aloud, convert the text into spoken language, use the mouth, eyes, ears, and brain at the same time, and go through the words word by word several times, it is not only conducive to concentrating on finding out mistakes, but also conducive to cultivating a sense of language and forming a sensitivity to language.

After entering the agency, I participated in the drafting of dozens of official documents of various kinds, from requests for instructions, meeting minutes, to summaries, and speeches by leaders, no matter what kind of style, after writing, I would read aloud several times. Thanks to this habit I developed at the newspaper, I was able to avoid a lot of clerical mistakes in my official writing.

It is best to delay the submission of urgent manuscripts

If you are in a hurry, you will be able to make mistakes. You can't do things in a hurry, and the same is true for writing articles.

When I was working at the newspaper, the city held an activity of "reporting to the people and asking the people to comment", and it was already more than 10 o'clock in the evening after the recording and broadcasting. The night shift editor came from time to time to urge the manuscript, and after returning to the unit, I handed it in after writing the manuscript in a hurry. It didn't take long for the editor to call me over, point to the manuscript and say, "That's not serious! It turned out that there was a place in the article where two commas were written in a row. I was ashamed to explain: "You have been calling the ** reminder ......"The more anxious you are, the more serious you have to be, such a mistake can be eliminated after a few minutes of checking! ”

Reminders are not only found in newspapers, but also in agencies, and sometimes several articles need to be drafted in a day. How to ensure high quality, efficiency and accuracy in the complicated process of writing and handling documents? My experience is that it is better to delay the submission of urgent manuscripts. The more urgent the manuscript, the more time to check it several times after it is written, otherwise "if you are in a hurry, you will make more mistakes".

The delay in the submission of urgent manuscripts does not mean that the urgent manuscript is written or not written, which procrastinate and affect the work, but it is necessary to improve the efficiency and level of official document writing in a limited time. In the face of the finished manuscript, be calm and not impatient, seriously find faults, put it in an appropriate way, and check and check it several times to ensure that the manuscript handed over to the leader is clean, refreshing and high-quality.

Ask someone else to check it

A person's knowledge inevitably has limitations, and if you can humbly ask others for advice, you can often make up for the shortcomings in your work. After the manuscript is written, not only should you check it several times, but you should also ask others to check it, and with a pair of eyes, you may be able to eliminate some hidden dangers.

After working in the agency, there was a commendation meeting in the province, and after the meeting, a colleague who had worked for many years was responsible for writing the commendation. After the first draft came out, the leader read it several times and was still not at ease, so he made a few copies and sent them to several comrades in the bureau, asking everyone to look at them separately. This example shows you that even seasoned writers can make mistakes, and in addition to their own strict checks, one more person will have a less chance of making mistakes.

The article is excerpted from the journal "Secretarial Work". Original title: "Reducing Text Errors"; Author: Guo Lifang).

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