Edit This!

Anyone else frustrated and immensely disappointed with the exorbitant amount of typographical errors, grammatical gaffes, and misuse of punctuation that are unedited and seem to be the standard in today's news articles? Yet these sloppy articles receive top placement on such popular news websites as Yahoo.com, Google News, and Business Insider. I have even spotted errors in articles published online by the Associated Press, albeit rare.

If you are a writer like me that teeters on the edge of a literary OCD, who always finds errors in writing, even restaurant menus, then you can appreciate the angst that comes with rereading a sentence because something that you've read seems "off". You know the sigh that follows immediately and the inevitability of the thoughts "How the hell did you get this garbage published?" or "Were the editors off today?"

I try to put myself in their shoes and imagine their process of writing, editing, and submitting the work all the while meeting a tight deadline for publication. Should I excuse or forgive the journalist from making such blatant errors? The unapologetic answer is a resounding "Hell no!"

Please allow me to explain my crass answer.

As a writer who is proud of their work and has set aside enough time to reread their own piece in order to self-edit before submitting for publication, why does it seem they choose to forgo this very important step? Did the writer have an impractical deadline that didn't afford a little time to speed read the article to check it before publishing? Were they relying on autocorrect to catch the mistakes, which in my opinion should be completely turned off and never trusted? Aren't there editors on staff at whichever firm they are freelancing? Did they use any discernible thought as to how well the article is written? Were they absent the day quality control was taught?

I think there should be a penalty for typos or other errors which the publisher enforces. The more errors made, the less money the writer receives. That'll teach them! I am only referring to online articles and not more traditional writing such as anything that can be in printed copy.

The old adage of "time is money" should be applied here. If the writer does not care for quality, then the pay is reflected as such. This concept would undoubtedly create an urgency for quality and accuracy. Imagine a world wide web free of typographical errors and abuse of the English language, not to mention where I placed the comma in this sentence that you, my reader, is reading. I gave it a lot of thought in order to be non hypocritical.

It takes time and finesse to create a proper sentence and even further intelligent thought to know when to break for a paragraph. I simply don't have enough time right now to teach my readers the proper use of "who" versus "whom." Hopefully, the people who choose to read my commentary already know the answer to that conundrum. I accept your critique if my use of "who" is incorrect within the previous sentence. I think it's appropriate to write "LOL" here if I were an online commenter.

I also take up issues with retail websites that are new to me, in the sense that I am guarded when I choose to purchase for the first time from their online store. The entire website is read and unsurprisingly, there are multiple errors discovered. Screen shots are captured, big red circles are drawn electronically, notes are written in the margins on a JPEG file stored, but then cooler heads prevail and I retract my claws. The drafted email with the JPEG files attached are unsent and remain archived. I suddenly realized that I don't work for that establishment and no one asked me to edit their work. They already paid good money for a web developer and therein lies the problem; the developer is not the copy editor. If the company cares about the quality of their online storefront, they need to decide to hire an editor to quality control their very expensive product. The merchandise or service that they sell is not their only product. The best product that they have, is the first product that users see and that is the website!

This topic of errors in writing has bothered me for a very long time. The people in my life are quite tired of hearing my complaints. There's no doubt about that.

I am eternally grateful for Vocal.com for providing an outlet for my editorial ranting and am sure to get some sleep now and most probably act like a less bitter woman when I read the news online today. I'll simply go back to counting sheep to keep my mind from the more pressing and troubling issues that are happening in today's world and pray for a better tomorrow.