Post something without proofreading

Post Reply New Topic

I am obsessed with proofreading my emails, posts, etc. to the point that it is crippling. I have to read everything at least two or three times, and then I after I have edited it, I have to read the whole thing again before I can send/post/submit it. Then I get anxiety that I might have posted something incorrect, so I have to go back and reread what I just posted.

Anyway, I know I am probably not the only one who has this problem, so I am making a thread for us to practice on. Write about whatever you want, and then click the "submit" button without proofreading it. (Not that you should always avoid proofreading- sometimes it is very important; however, exposure to one's fear in a safe environment is an important step to overcoming a phobia). Here are the rules:
Editing as you write (e.g. correcting a misspelled word you just typed) is allowed; correcting mistakes pointed out by spell check is allowed; however you may not go back to sentences you have already finished to look for things to change.

If you don't know what to write about, I would suggest a special interest or something else you are excited about writing about.

So here I go.

The Arabic alphabet is a really great writing system. It is definitely one of the most aesthetically pleasing writing systems in the world, and it is also interesting because it is not an alphabet like most of the writing systems used in Europe. It is an abjad, meaning that it does not have vowels like the alphabet used by English speakers. The "alphabet" part of the abjad consists mostly of consonants, and the vowels are represented by small symbols written above or below the preceding consonant.

To a student of modern Arabic, that explanation of why the Arabic writing system is an abjad and not an alphabet may seem confusing, because it would appear that the modern Arabic writing system does include at least two vowels, the letters yud and wow. However, if the student were also studying classical Arabic, then he would realize that, in classically Arabic, yud is a consonant like y and wow is a consonant like w. If they represent long vowels, the a vowel symbol would need to be placed on the yud or wow to give it the extra vowel sound. However, in modern Arabic, the vowel symbols are usually omitted to make writing easier, creating the allusion that short vowels are simply not writing and that long vowels are written with yud and wow.

rachel_519 your post looks great and I did not see any spelling errors.

Here I go posting something withoiut prooffreading it first and I keep deleting letters because I am mispelling things. I too like to re-read my emails and posts on WP as well.

In school I was always a pretty good speller and an excellent reader in 1st grade. In 1st grade when other kids would read out loud and struggle I would wondetr why and would think "but reading is so easy how could anyone have trouble reading?" In elementary schoiol in about 1st and 2nd grade I had some symptoms of synthesia, but they went away a few years later. My symptom included seeing days of the week as shapes and at the time I thought it was kind of strange yet cool.

Now I have read about synthesia quite a bit online after learning about it from a TV show. Synthesia is quite fascianting since it seems to occur in musicians and artists quite a lot. For example, a muscian will see different musical notes as different colors. Or an artist will see letters or numbers as distinct colors and will always see the same numbers as the same colors. For example the #1 if seen as the color red then it will alwasy be seen this way.

Other types of synthesia include hearing noise when seeing something even though sound does not actually exist. For example, seeing a silent cartoon, but hearing something. For example, say you view a silent video of a car going by and then if you have this type of synthesia you hear the car going by. Other ttypes of synthesia include tasting a certain flavor when seeing a certain person or object or wehn smelling something you would taste a certain flavor. i find synthesia very interesting and I want to research even more online about this topic.

I don't go nuts with going back and proofreading, but I constantly type out something and realize "Oh crap, I forgot to mention this and that and the other thing." Sometimes I just don't like how I worded something. My biggest problem is just typing correctly. I usually have a load of typos, but often catch them as I do them. My spelling is usually good, my punctuation accurate, but my fingers rarely do what I want them to do with 100% accuracy.

I often cringe when I go back and read my old blog from years ago and see all the things I messed up. Even now, I sometimes see a mistake and want to beat my head against a wall. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my own writing, and since writing is a big part of my job, I take it even more seriously than ever now.

This is harder than it sounds. There are like four sentences I just typed that I want to add things to. Gah!

I started writing something that I was considering trying to turn into a book project a while back, and if I couldn't go back and add to what I had already written, I'd be completely screwed.

Ok, here goes. I cannot guarantee or promise that I will be able to follow the OP's intention, but I can try. For me, of course, this obsession of meticulous proofreading is more enhanced because I'm not a born English speaker, and in addition to what the OP said about herself, I need dictionaries and gramma… what's the word for those books that deal with grammar? It cannot be just grammar book, can it? Right now I feel a compelling urge to check what the word is but I'm trying not to. This is surprisingly difficult, the whole task. This is definately extremely un-me-like (can you say that?) and ... argh I realized definitely was ill-spelled. Lord Almighty, it's almost impossible for me NOT to correct it. For the sake of science I'll leave it as it is.

Interesting experiment, thank you Rachel.

Thanks. I think my biggest problem with proofreading is not just checking for errors, but rewording things. I am paranoid about being misunderstood, so I compulsively read and reword my writing until I am sure that every sentence is perfect. It is nice to know that my post looks good.

Your post is good, too- a few spelling errors, not many, and they didn't hurt the readability of the post. Synthesia is very interesting. I didn't know about the type of synthesia where you hear sound in silent movies.

This. And I tried not to proof read it, but I can't not. I work in a job, one of which's tasks is to write emails from scratch. It takes me far too long to do that portion of my job.

Mustelids have the highest strength to weight ratio of any mammal. Mustelids include weasels, otters and badgers. The fiercest amongst them all is the honey badger. The honey badger has skin so tough that it cannot be penetrated with knives or claws. The honey badger likes to eat honey, which is where their name comes from. To get honey, the will just go up to a beehive and grab it, being stung thousands of times in the process. Honey badgers are so badass they don't care. They can also withstand being poisoned by deadly snakes.

The varieties of otter include the Eurasian otter, the Asian short-clawed otter, the American river otter, the sea otter, the South American giant otter and the African clawless otter. The sea otter spends its entire life in the sea. Sea otters often hug each other so that they don't drift away whilst they float in the sea. The Asian short-clawed otter likes to juggle stones and they are very playful. Otters are carnivorous but zookeepers and people who work at otter sancturies try to feed them vegetables for health reasons. Otters hate these and often whine for more meat. Otters have a very fast metabolism and they want feeding constantly, or they feel like they're going to starve. They are not nocturnal, rather they are like cats in that they are crepuscular and take lots of short naps throughout the day.