What’s up, everyone?
Not long ago, I said to keep an ear out at the end of a post.
And this weekend, I was reminded of that. A few instructors and I discussed ways to check your feedback before sending it to a student.
One instructor said, “read it out loud.” As a copywriter, I’m a big fan of this.
I told the group that while it’s something I do, I still have to be careful. Especially when I read something…right after I wrote it. If I do that, I find myself reading it the way I meant to write it. Not the way I actually wrote it. Sometimes I’ll even add or remove words when I’m reading. And I always add tone.
For me. The highest value from reading out loud is a couple of days after I’ve written the thing. This gives me a chance to mentally separate from it.
I know what you’re thinking. And I get it.
We don’t have a couple of days to give that feedback or send the email. It needs to be delivered. And it needs to be delivered…right now.
So, what do I do in this case?
I read it out loud, knowing that I’ll probably read it the way I meant to write it. And then I send it.
We’re not going to be perfect every time, are we?
Hopefully, we’ve done enough work on the reader’s relationship that they give us the benefit of the doubt. But we’ll talk about that later.
For now. Thank you for hanging out with me.
mj