Climbing up the career ladder is never easy, especially when your responsibilities and professional expectations are also rising. We know for a fact that every professional who has big plans for his career must be very attentive to his professional reputation.Your reputation as an employee or as a client surely impacts your career opportunities. These future opportunities can come as promotions, closed deals, or as constructive relationships with other clients.
Well, in order to keep your reputation clean and safe, you should ensure that your writing is always impeccable. Impeccable writing means that your text contains NO grammar, spelling, or text structure mistakes.
In today’s post, you’ll take a quick peek at some of the most important reasons for proofreading every text you write and send throughout your career. Moreover, we’re teaching you how to improve your proofreading process through some simple yet effective tips, so pay attention and implement everything you learn!
Your Writing Shows Who You Are
In today’s professional marketplace, your writing shows the type of person you are. Even you may have made judgments based on other people’s writing, so you shouldn’t expect less from others.
The very first impression you give truly matters, especially in a B2B environment. Your writing shows the first “things” about your professional character, so get used to paying consistent attention to your proofreading. Don’t give people false impressions because of some tiny mistakes.
Focused Proofreading Makes the Whole Difference Between Successful and Mediocre
Let me give you a simple example. When you need something, you usually ask for it. Let’s say that what you need is a new contract with a new client. There are often two results: you land that contract, or you miss it.
To improve your success odds, you’ll need to carefully develop and strategize your pitch, and you need to ensure that it’s perfectly written. If you send one or two grammar mistakes, you can say goodbye to your client as nobody will do business with someone who can’t write correctly.
Helps You Maintain a Professional Reputation
When it comes to building a satisfying career path, your professional reputation is your “everything”. It’s basically how people see you and how they react to you. Big leaders have earned their respect and status through great accomplishments, and everybody respects them now.
Building a professional reputation takes time, persistence, and lots of mistakes. However, some mistakes are acceptable while others are not. Incorrect writing is surely a non-acceptable mistake because it mostly shows your lack of interest, attention, and professionalism.
It Shows that You Care
Great proofreading efforts will always cause positive effects. For example, if you apply for a job, both your resume and your cover letter must be impeccably written. This shows the employer that you’re treating his job very seriously and that you’d do everything you can to leave a good, first impression.
Correct Writing Keeps Your Message Intact
Very often, text errors such as misspelled words and bad grammar will have a terrible effect on your text’s message. Some unspotted mistakes might even change the meaning of your message, so the reader will understand something else.
You really don’t have to be a professional essay writer to effectively proofread your written content. You just need to be patient, careful, and always consistent!
How to Improve Your Proofreading
Here are some simple and efficient ways to improve your proofreading process:
- Truly Disconnect Once You’re Done Writing
You should never begin your proofreading process before disconnecting from your work for a decent amount of time. A few hours, a day, a week…do as you please. The purpose is to lose the familiarity of your text to be able to use a “fresh pair of eyes” to spot and edit your mistakes.
- Consult Your “Proofreading Notes”
Make some notes and include the most common writing mistakes that you generally commit. Whenever you proofread your content, keep those notes close to you and take some quick peeks every now and then. Or, you can approach the proofreader’s marks technique.
- Read the Text on a Different Platform
Write your text on PC, print it out, and do your proofreading with a pen in your hand. Or, you can use your tablet or e-reader to deal with the task. The point here is to give your eyes new “opportunities” to seize mistakes. If you write and proofread on the same platform, your eyes might just ignore mistakes without your conscious awareness.
- Take Short & Frequent Breaks to Disconnect
Short and frequent breaks are key to quality work and especially to quality proofreading. Your brain is not a computer and your attention capacities are often limited. Therefore, disconnect from your text and stop thinking about it. Come back after a few minutes and start again.
Takeaways
Now that you understand some of the terrible consequences that may happen as a result of poor writing, you should start paying more time and attention to your proofreading activities and learn from your mistakes. In time, you’ll do fewer and fewer mistakes, turning your proofreading process in a simple task.
