You’ve read and reread your work multiple times. You are positive your blog, letter, or resume is perfect, that you have zapped all the typos. You publish your post or send off your letter. And then you discover a typo—right in the first sentence.
You aren’t alone. Proofreading your own work is difficult. Dr. Tom Stafford (Twitter@tomstafford), a lecturer in psychology and cognitive science at the University of Sheffield, said that the reason we miss our mistakes is that we as humans view everything as “a mix of sensory data and our expectations about the world.”
Stafford also pointed out that “our own typos are hard to spot because we know what we meant to write, and so this gets in the way of seeing what we actually did write.” Essentially, when trying to proof our own work, our brains automatically fill in the information it knows is supposed to be there.
Sometimes, readers will also fill in missing information or overwrite incorrect wording. Per Reader’s Digest Australia, Stafford said if readers have the same ”shared experience” as the writer, the reader can also miss that same typo. However, that typo may trip up the writer’s other readers whose brains don’t know what information to fill in.
There are ways to mitigate missing typos while reading your own work. One common way is changing up how the words look on your screen—for instance, changing the font size, font face, or background color. Another way is to go old school by printing it out and reading your work on paper. (Just don’t forget to recycle—or shred, if need be.) Doing either of these will help trick your brain into thinking you’re reading new information.
Nevertheless, there is no substitute for hiring a copyeditor and/or proofreader. If you’re ready to have your work looked over, contact me for a quote.
Happy writing!
Best,
Rita
Editor’s Note
This post was temporarily removed on July 26, 2022, to work on revising out ableist language.
This page was republished August 8, 2022. Thank you to all for your patience!