Why do so many hubbers not bother to proof-read their hubs before publishing the

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   sleepylogposted 12 years ago

   Why do so many hubbers not bother to proof-read their hubs before publishing them?
   
   I have read some shocking hubs from top-ranking hubbers and the mind boggles as to how they manage to get up so high in the rankings. Honestly some of them sound like 12 year olds. Their grammar and spelling are appalling and the vocabulary isn't any better. I think HP should take those things into consideration also because poorly written hubs really do reflect badly on HP and this affects all of us in the end.

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2. 66

   mizjoposted 12 years ago

   You're right, sleepylog, I do read a lot of hubs that could not have been proofed before submission.  Grammar, syntax and spellings are the main glaring mistakes.  It is not cute to wrongly use words like 'their, there, there's, theirs'.  Let's hope your question makes us all sit up and comb through our work to clean them up.

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3. 93

   jansharesposted 12 years ago

   No, I'm not one of the highest-ranking hubbers but I am guilty as charged. I'm a pretty good writer but in my rush to publish, I fail to proof read every line and, as a result, have put out a hub or two or three with typos. Once I see it, or a dear friend or my sister alerts me, I make the correction. (I recently learned the hard way to do it after pending status) I do feel awful when it happens because it's preventable.
   In defense of good writers who make mistakes in haste, I think that it happens when we are in 'excited mode' as we anticipate clicking "publish." I liken it to a "high" that comes over us that makes us not see our mistakes because we've convinced ourselves that "this is our best hub to date and it looks great!" It's like being in an altered state on drugs.
   There was one hub that I proof read several times, capsule by capsule, and was shocked when my sister emailed me the typos. I don't know how I missed it except that I was on a "hubber high." Anyway, not an excuse, just an explanation.

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      jansharesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, sleepylog. Make your corrections :-)

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   tussinposted 12 years ago

   Hubpages isn't a professional publishing platform, any yahoo yokel can create an account and throw up an article.  There is no such thing as a top-rated hubber.  There are simply people who get more traffic than others.  You can write a lot of  tripe and still get traffic. Just got to pick the right topics is all.

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   junksellerposted 12 years ago

   In your hub "Surviving a long-distance relationship" I counted 3 grammar errors. This was without even carefully reading. Perhaps it isn't as easy as you make it out to be. I actually find it pretty hard to edit one's own writing. It is just too easy to continually read through a mistake over and over without seeing it. Additional pairs of eyes are a tremendous asset but one which many of us do not have.
   
   I'm all for good grammar and quality writing, but I don't know if the appalling 12-year-old type rhetoric is the best way to bring that about.
   
   I wonder if HP could implement a feature that would allow fellow hubbers to provide editorial comments to other members without them being viewable by the public. Sometimes I see mistakes but don't want to call them out for everyone to see. There are a lot of helpful people around here. I wouldn't be surprised if HP could assemble a team of volunteer editors. It wouldn't be like having professionals, but it would be a second pair of eyes that could at least catch the simple stuff.

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      sleepylogposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for pointing out that my hub has errors in it, I will correct those soon. I probably didn't have my glasses on when I was working on it and yes a team of volunteer editors would be a great feature to have on HP.

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   CWanamakerposted 12 years ago

   For the most part, I think that it comes down to simple impatience. Many hubbers (including myself) are pressed for time and are eager to get something published quickly.  If we slave for hours over a hub the last thing that we want to do is read it again!  I try hard to let my new hubs  rest for at least a day before I publish them, however, sometimes I still find mistakes in them later on.

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      sleepylogposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      No one is perfect and I still find errors in some of my hubs, even after proof-reading them and publishing them (and others have found them too, lol). I think it's easy to distinguish typos from poor literacy skills or lack of proofing.

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   Gina145posted 12 years ago

   Sometimes simple mistakes are easy to miss, even with a lot of proofreading.  I refer specifically to mizjo's reference to the words their and there.  When you know what you meant to write, sometimes you see it, even if it isn't there.
   One are two mistakes like that don't worry me too much, but if the same mistakes are made over and over again it does look bad.
   What bothers me a lot is the mistakes any spellchecker could pick up.

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   Novel Treasureposted 12 years ago

   I don't know that it's a question of why hubbers don't proof-read their hubs before publishing. Though, I am sure that some of the do not. I think it's a matter of when you look at something for so long you are more likely to miss something. So, since a hubber has been probably re-reading and re-writing the hub for a span of time, they are more likely to miss something.
   
   But the excitement of publishing another hub, is too much to have them sit on it for a day and come back to it.
   
   I myself am guilty, so I proof read as best I can before. Submit it, wait for the pending period to be over and then will go back to it to see if I can see anything I missed.
   
   That being said, I am not an English major or a professional writer. There are grammatical things I still am confused on. I think that is the same for the majority of the people who write on hubpages.

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   wtaylorjr2001posted 12 years ago

   I am ashamed to admit it, but I am guilty of this as well. I guess it's laziness, wanting to get the hub out as quickly as possible and repair it later. When you finish a project you get excited and caught up in the moment, you want to share it and get feedback as soon as possible.

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    Larry Wallposted 12 years ago

    Proofreading your own work is hard for a number of reasons. First, you may have a weakness in some area like spelling (my weak point) grammar, syntax, etc. Secondly, in reviewing your hub you may change a word or two in a sentence and not re-read the sentence to see if the changes created any other areas. Finally, after writing it, reading it, editing it  and reading it again, you know what you want to say, but skip over it. I am sure everyone uses a spell checker, but they are not perfect. There are some grammar checkers that work pretty well, but will sometimes cause an error because it does not recognize the context of the word or phrase being use. Finally, we get in a hurry. We are not writing term papers, we write when we can in our spare time, and sometimes we just miss stuff. I know I do and it really bothers me when it is in a comment that I cannot correct because the window of opportunity has closed.

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