Tag Archive for: mistakes

Why you must proofread

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Your eyes don’t catch all of your typos and neither does your spell-checking or grammar-checking software. On top of that, sometimes software suggests corrections that I can only describe as “humorous,” if not “pathetic.”

Why you must proofread infographic

You see what you expect to see

It’s hard for you to see your typos because your brain makes you see what you expect to see. For example, if you’re outside a movie theater, you’d probably read “Star Wa2s” as “Star Wars,” as Loretta Breuning says in Tame Your Anxiety. That’s because, as Breuning says, “defaulting to the familiar pattern seems so reasonable that you barely notice the difference between the actual input and the old pathway.”

For more on how this applies to typos, read “What’s Up With That: Why It’s So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos” in Wired. (I didn’t quote the article because it spells “proofread” as two words, which is oh so wrong.)

Spell checkers miss homonyms and more

Spell-checking software can’t identify misplaced homonyms—words that sound alike but have different meanings. Words like “there” and “their” or “are” and “our.” I discuss another example in “Your spell checker doesn’t work so you must proofread.”

Spell checkers can also miss typos like writing “manger” for “portfolio manager.” Can you imagine opening a beautiful pitch book with “Jane Miller, portfolio manger” on the cover? That kind of typo can make prospects and clients worry that you’re not careful about more serious matters.

One of my newsletter readers shared a hilarious example in “Another reason to proofread: Broker example.” (By the way, to be fair, Microsoft Word, Grammarly, and PerfectIt all highlighted “manger” as a potential typo in my draft of this blog post.)

Spell checkers and grammar checkers also miss mistakes in sentences that are perfectly spelled and grammatical but make no sense at all—or that are too darned long.

Humorous “corrections”

Microsoft Word sometimes entertains me with ludicrous suggestions for “corrections.” For example, it suggested that I change “massage therapist” to “message therapist.”

A LinkedIn reader told me of an even stranger Microsoft suggestion. When he proofread a legal document, Microsoft Word suggested that he change “case law” to “casserole.” Wow!

The bottom line is that you can’t mindlessly accept “corrections” suggested by software.

Obvious mistakes hurt your credibility

When readers find obvious mistakes, they may think less of you. For example, they may worry that mistakes may reflect a lack of attention to detail that also shows up in how you manage their money.

What can you do?

I’m not suggesting that you give up on doing your own proofreading or using tools that check your spelling and grammar.

However, I also suggest that you get someone else to proofread your work, if possible. It’s great if you can hire a professional. If not, a colleague, friend, or member of your target audience can also help.

Another helpful complement to your own proofing and automated proofreading tools is to read your work out loud. If you’re like me, and you don’t enjoy the sound of your voice, use the text-to-voice function of Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat, as I describe on my blog.

Here are some more techniques, some of which I culled from “Six ways to stop sending emails with errors”:

  • Wait at least 24 hours before proofreading. You can look at your piece with fresh eyes.
  • Print out your piece. Consider using a different font or type size to make it look different from your original.
  • Read your piece from the bottom up. Starting with the last sentence and moving up sentence by sentence may disrupt your ability to anticipate what comes next. This may help you to find problems within individual sentences.
  • Create a checklist of common errors, as I’ve discussed in “5 proofreading tips for quarterly investment reports” and in the “Financial Blog Post Review” checklist in my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients.

 

How I use Grammarly to improve my writing

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Some writers swear by Grammarly for automated grammar and style checking of their writing. I think it’s probably most useful for inexperienced writers who lack familiarity with the rules of writing. But even I find it helpful. I check most of my articles with it.

Warning: Grammarly gets things wrong

Grammarly is great at catching obvious mistakes that violate simple rules. It’s not as good with less straightforward questions. It often makes suggestions that I disagree with. For example, I frequently don’t agree that using a different adjective or adding or deleting a comma makes sense when Grammarly says it does.

Here’s an example. In the first paragraph of this blog post, Grammarly suggested that I change “most useful” to “most beneficial.” I disagree with that advice. I prefer plain language to ten-dollar words.

most useful-most beneficial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another example of a bad recommendation by Grammarly. It suggested that I soften my tone by going from “I disagree with that advice” to “I’m afraid I have to disagree” or “I can’t entirely agree.” That’s not right for an opinionated blog post, although it might help in an email that you send to a colleague or a client.

 

I disagree-I'm afraid I have to disagree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skim, don’t read every comment by Grammarly

Grammarly’s weaknesses mean that I don’t look at every single “mistake” that appears on the right-hand side of the page (as with “Choose a different word” in the screenshot below). Instead, I scan to see what Grammarly has underlined in my text—such as “most useful” in the screenshot below—and decide whether I think it’s worthwhile to check Grammarly’s suggestions.

most useful grammarly

Grammarly color-codes its comments. Green—like in the screenshot above—is for “engagement.” Grammarly explains in a blog post that its engagement comments aim to cut down on bland or overused words and monotonous passages. Red is for “correctness” in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Blue is for “clarity,” which often targets wordiness. Purple is for “delivery” or “tone,” which seeks to identify unnecessary hedging and whether you’ve hit the right level of politeness and formality.

Grammarly pushes you to improve

To encourage you to improve, Grammarly will send you a weekly report on content that you have checked.

It reports on your:

  • Productivity in terms of the number of words checked
  • Mastery of grammar, as measured by Grammarly
  • Vocabulary, as measured by the number of unique words used
  • Tone

productivity-mastery-vocabulary

 

grammarly tone

 

 

 

Reading financial advisor Brian Thompson’s article “4 powerful tech tools for digital marketing” (NAPFA Advisor, August 2021), I learned that you can set targets for tone. You can try this function to see if it helps you.

Free versus paid version of Grammarly

I upgraded to the paid version of Grammarly. I didn’t experience a huge boost in its usefulness for me. If you like the free version, consider trying the paid version for one year to see if it’s worth the expense.

Best approach to Grammarly

Take what works for you from Grammarly. If you find that Grammarly is most useful in spotting problems with your tone, use it for that. If you like how it identifies sentences that are too long, focus on that. Customize your use to your needs, and it’ll be worth the investment of your time, whether you use the free or paid version of Grammarly.

 

 

Note: I edited this on Sept. 30, 2022.

Discuss your mistakes like Warren Buffett

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It’s not a sign of weakness to discuss your mistakes. At least, it’s not if you discuss your mistakes like Warren Buffett.

Benefit of discussing your mistakes

“Berkshire investors gain confidence because Buffett doesn’t gloss over his mistakes,” writes L.J. Rittenhouse, in Buffett’s Bites: The Essential Investor’s Guide to Warren Buffett’s Shareholder Letters. She shares several examples of mistakes that Warren Buffett has discussed in Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder letters.

“These public postmortems may not reduce the number of his mistakes—he is human—but he is less likely to repeat them,” says Rittenhouse.

How to discuss your mistakes

Buffett is a big fan of using plain language in writing about financial topics. He speaks plainly about his mistakes. Referring to Dexter Shoe Company, he wrote, as quoted by Rittenhouse,”To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made. But I’ll make more mistakes in the future—you can bet on that.” You can’t get plainer than that.

Buffett uses some humor in discussing his mistakes. For example, says Rittenhouse, “He described his biggest all-time blunder in his 2007 letter in a reference to a Bobby Bare country western lyric about going to bed with good-looking women and waking up to find they are ugly.” I think that putting down women’s appearance risks offending today’s readers. However, the use of analogy is a powerful technique.

It’s safer to poke fun at oneself. Buffett described his failure to do a big deal, saying, “The only explanation is that my brain had gone on vacation and forgotten to notify me.”

Try discussing mistakes in your performance reviews

I’ve discussed the importance of discussing mistakes in “Four lessons from Wasatch Funds on reporting underperformance.” By explaining what went wrong, you give your clients and prospects more confidence in how you’ll manage things in the future. After all, if you can’t recognize your mistakes, how can you fix them. Try it!

 

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

Writing and preventable mistakes

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“Does your advice stick?” is the title of an article by Moira Somers in the Journal of Financial Planning (May 2018). Based on her book, Advice That Sticks: How to Give Financial Advice That People Will Follow, it describes why clients fail to follow financial advice, and what advisors can do about it. Somers lists preventable mistakes that advisors make in their personal relationships with clients and prospects.

Some of the mistakes could seep into your writing, making it harder for clients and prospects to feel a connection with you. I highlight two of them below, with comments on how to address them.

Mistake 1. “Using incomprehensible jargon”

If people can’t understand what you’re saying, they can’t follow your advice.

If you’re not sure about the jargon level of your writing, you can run tests using Hemingway, the app I describe in “Free help for wordy writers!” You’ll find more tools in “Does your article pass these writing tests?”

Even better, get a member of your target audience to read what you’ve written. Then, don’t just ask them, “Do you understand what I’ve written?” Ask them to summarize it in their own words. That’s the gold-standard test.

Somers suggests that you ask even more from members of your target audience. She says:

Start by taking every piece of written information you might give to a typical client and hand it over to four or five people—either existing clients or people who would be similar to them in major ways. Equip them with a marker and ask them to highlight every sentence whose content they do not fully understand. Compare the results. Redo those documents in client-friendly language.

That seems as if you’re asking a lot of those people. However, it would be a valuable exercise.

When you rewrite your documents, you may find it helpful to use the techniques in “How to make one quarterly letter fit clients at different levels of sophistication” and “Plain language: Let’s get parenthetical.” You can also consult “Glossaries for investment and economic jargon.”

Mistake 2. “Allowing disapproval, disappointment, or disdain to taint the relationship”

Somers’ suggestion for this point focuses on in-person meetings. “Do a warmth audit of your team,” looking at “eye contact, nodding, and smiling.” Look at your writing through a similar lens.

Tone matters. Your blog posts and articles can suggest that your readers are making mistakes, but you shouldn’t imply “Oh, you idiot, stop making such stupid moves!”

I struggle with hitting the right tone as I write blog posts. It’s not easy. By saying that many people grapple with similar issues, I hope to avoid shaming people. After, most of my readers aren’t professional writers. It’s not reasonable to expect them to know the ins and outs of grammar, white papers, and the like.

Show empathy. You can do this focusing on the reader, suggests The Search Guru in “Discover how to show empathy in writing and why it’s important.” That means showing that you understand and empathize with the wants and/or needs of a relevant group of people.”

I offer more tips on this in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—”How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—Part One” and “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—Part Two.”

 

Purge these preventable mistakes from the writing you put in front of your clients and prospects! You’ll like the results.

 

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.