Spelling

A high level view of Paris - including the Eiffel Tower.In the age of spell checkers, it’s hard to imagine that spelling errors would make the most common error list, but they do. First, it’s important to remember to run the spell checker when you’re revising a paper. The spell checker won’t necessarily catch everything, but it’s a good place to start.

We’ve already covered some errors that can slip by the spell check in our Wrong Word section. In addition to possibly creating wrong-word errors, spell checkers also miss misspelled words like names and other proper nouns, as illustrated in the following example:

On my vacation to France, I went to Pares and visited the Eifel Tower, the Louvre museum, and Jim Morrison’s grave.

The spell checker missed these errors. Here is the corrected version of the sentence:

On my vacation to France, I went to Paris and visited the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and Jim Morrison’s grave.

So, be sure to run your spell checker, but, then, don’t forget to double and triple check your writing. Spell checkers do not catch everything.

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