Why spelling and grammar matters for freelancers
Those of you who know what a spelling nerd I am won’t be suprirsed when I say: using proper spelling and grammar is just as important as the client work you do as a freelancer.
Yes, I may be biased, but I believe it’s true that if you don’t consider your spelling and grammar, the rest of your work will suffer. There’s one simple reason for that.
You will appear unprofessional and careless if your spelling is bad
I don’t mean the occasional mistake here and there (“Occasional” is one word I personally always mess up). I mean emails littered with spelling errors and grammatical mixups. Imagine you are the client and you email your freelancer a question about the project you’re working on. The email you get back is full of so many spelling mistakes and poorly-constructed sentences that you have to read it twice to understand. How would your opinion of the freelancer change?
Take your time with every email
Emails and instant messages are immediate forms of communication, but take a couple of minutes to review every message before you hit Send. It’s been my experience that really badly-constructed emails and letters are a result of the writer rushing through it. Read over your email or message and make sure that all the client’s questions are answered and your relevant points have been made. Read it out loud to make sure it flows well. Look for obvious errors, but also watch out for spelling mistakes that spell checker programs might not catch because, technically, they’re not spelled wrong. These include they’re/their/there and you’re/your mixups – and my personal favourite: it’s/its. Someone I know reads each word backwards – she says that it helps misspellings jump out at her.
Nobody’s expecting perfection
Everyone makes spelling and grammar mistakes, and your client will understand that. The important thing is to just take care with the things you write. It’s one of the most important things you can do to improve your reputation and put forth an image that is just as professional as the work you do.
I wrote an article on Suite 101 called Communications Skills for the Self-Employed for anyone who might be interested to learn more.
Image courtesy of stock.xchng user dotlizard.
Category: Freelance Writing, Spelling & Grammar, Writing Tips