One must, (and I repeat and capitalize MUST,) read through every bit of content that one writes. Unfortunately, it isn’t always possible – and only when it isn’t possible, only when one doesn’t do a review due to one or the other constraint, one experiences the full impact of this mistake.
I realized it this morning, when I chanced upon a copy of the eZine that I sent out yesterday. I discovered two typos in a single glance, and I’ve been berating myself ever since. Yet, once the eZine gets sent, it gets sent – and nothing can bring it back. Nothing can correct those typos and whether or not anyone notices them, they’ll rankle on. To make matters even worse, my new word processing application changed all the apostrophes to question marks! What did I do wrong? Well, I didn’t review it for language before pressing the Send button, and I didn’t do an end-user check to see how it was being rendered in other email programs such as gmail! And why didn’t I do it? I could tell you that I wasn’t well, or that the week had been painfully busy. But honestly, there’s no satisfactory answer.
This reiterates the importance of the Language Editor in the eLearning Content Development Life Cycle. It also underlines the fact that we often try to ignore – our mental faculties aren’t at their sharpest when we haven’t slept enough.
Do read about the Mighty Language Editor once again. And here’s my advice to myself – As my Creative Agni posts and eZine write-ups aren’t reviewed by a Language Editor, I need to don the mantle of a proof-reader and do a read-through of my content before press the Publish or the Send buttons.
(My alter-ego has a question for me. How will I stop being my absent-minded self? I guess I won’t – I’ll just try to do the best I can :))