Tip of The Day #7

Today I am going for something really simple but yet a lot of people don't do it. I really feel it benefits me, so why not give it a go and if it doesn't work for you, then hey, what have you lost! Your Tip Of The Day is

"Read your work aloud"


This may sound like quite an odd piece of advice but let me explain first before you decide. When most people write you find that you get into a flow and you keep writing and writing and you read back over it in your head and it sounds fine . Now read it aloud and you sometimes pick up on things you wouldn't if you were reading in your head. I used this example on my partner the other day (I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning it!) He had written a short piece of writing and read it over and was happy with it. He asked me to read it through it but instead I asked him to read it out loud to me. As he was reading through it he kept stopping himself and rearranging words that didn't quite sound right and by doing that he completely edited his writing himself.

I always read my work out loud to check for mistakes or to see if a sentence I have written makes sense. It also works well for me if i am writing something and get stuck, can't think of what to put next, so I read it aloud to see if anything naturally follows it or if I need to change it. 9 times out of 10 it works for me. So today's tip may be short and simple but it really is a little tip worth knowing!