Creative writing or technical writing? It doesn’t matter; spell it correctly!

I spent numerous carefree hours freewriting in college. As a creative writing major, the rules didn’t always matter and when revising my random thoughts, I didn’t need to remember them all. I loved the process in creative writing… the freewriting, the casual overstepping of rules and the telling of a good story. I spent many hours paying attention to the world around me—eavesdropping on a stranger’s conversation and people watching in a busy city area. Amazing plot lines and dialogue emerged from everyday people! During my junior and senior years, I subjected myself to professional writing courses merely because I had to; all the while, I cursed my non-creative professors who adhered to the rules of grammar and punctuation and used their little red pen on everything. I didn’t realize it would be the classes I cursed that would help me most in my current profession.

Copywriting involves a lot of interviews, research, proofreading, editing, and revision, revision, revision. The rules actually matter when writing for the industrial web. Grammar and punctuation are a necessity in online content. Writing for a new audience changed the way I look at my own writing. The other day, I found myself correcting the grammatical errors in a dialogue piece I wrote. Rather than leaving the mistakes that belonged in the context of which I was writing, I changed the words. My story no longer revolved around two normal teenagers; now they were smart, intellectually forward students, with potential brilliance beyond their sixteen years. Grammatical errors are normal in everyday speech patterns. I can’t think of anyone who perfected the English language and all its nuances while speaking. Yet when writing for the industrial web, it is important to write as if speaking in a grammatically correct tone is normal.

The one thing, however, that rings true in both creative and professional writing is spelling. Since its beginning, numerous eyes read the following text and the mind instantly translated the thought for comprehension.

“Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?”

Please note: regardless of whether or not the research was conducted at Cambridge University is irrelevant at this point so please do not get hung up on that.

No matter who you are writing for, spelling is essential. Whether we immediately know what the writer is trying to say or not doesn’t matter. Spelling words incorrectly makes your writing look juvenile. It is important to always proofread your work before submitting it. If need be, allow others to proofread it as well.

Consider your audience to determine whether creative or technical writing would suffice. And remember, nearly everyone notices misspelled words. Happy writing!

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