How to Correct Writers with Grace.
This post was inspired by numerous discussions among writers who often disagree on the subject of having their typos or mistakes corrected by their readers. There are those who get discouraged by being corrected by strangers and don’t appreciate it and others who seem grateful. Medium has a tool, which comes in handy to anyone who wants to contact an author regarding a mistake or write another kind of a private message. Messaging on Medium allows you to highlight a few words or a passage and write a private message to the author about it.
Here’s my suggestion on how to correct writers with grace:
If you see a typo or a grammar mistake, do point it out but make sure there’s nothing succeeding it. No explanation, no rules and no shaming.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post The Most Powerful Way to Say “I’m Sorry.”
You can read it but my conclusion is that the most powerful way to say I’m sorry is: “I’m sorry.” There’s no but and no explanation coming after it, just a simple claim “I’m sorry.” Think about it for a second, read the article and relate it to correcting a writer’s mistake.
Let me explain.
Let’s take “no one” as an example and let’s say it was written as one word. Here are a few different ways you could pinpoint the mistake:
- Anna, you meant “no one.”
- Anna, it’s “no one.”
- Anna, it should be “no one”. No one is always written separately as opposed to someone or nobody.
The corrections are arranged in the order of my preference with the first one being my preferred one. It’s a gentle way of correcting and assuming that it’s the author’s overlook. I like that. In the second correction, there’s an underlying assumption that the writer didn’t know that this is how it’s spelled. Here’s why number 3 is my absolute least favorite and here’s why some writers do not like being corrected. There’s absolutely no need to explain, give examples or write grammar rules regarding the mistake. Here’s why:
- The mistake may be obvious to the writer, who simply made a typo.
- A long comment regarding a typo may be offensive to the writer, who may feel that the attention got diverted from his article to the typo. He has worked so hard on the content and the only thing that the reader remembers is the typo?
- The person making the correction is not a trusted source. Often the writer doesn’t even know the reader so rules and explanations made by him will simply be ignored. If the author wants to find out more about the mistake, more trusted information is just a click away.
I do appreciate private messages and corrections in whatever form they come but the gentle way is my preferred way. Writing can be a tough journey for some who put in long hours, usually after the day job. Writers struggle, hustle and are discouraged. They live unconventionally and are misunderstood. Please be gentle.
How do you take corrections? Do you have a preferred way or do you think readers should do what they’re supposed to do: read.
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