Spellcheck

Here’s an old-school trick you can use to ‘spell check’ your reports…read your finished report backwards!

It is a fact that when we read, our brain has learned to skip over words that it’s used to seeing all the time. It basically fills in the blanks in order to save time. This results in us missing common spelling errors simply because we don’t see them. When we read tha words backwards, our brain is not used to it and it’s forced to pay attention to every word. Your eyes slow down and this reduction in speed will allow you to make out misspelled and duplicate words. Give it a try…there is an incorrectly spelled word here. Without using the spell-check, start from the end and move backwards to see if you can identify it.

While obviously not as fast as using your computers’ spell-check, this technique will often allow you to find errors even that often misses. It’s also a convenient backup when you can’t access a computer.