29 May PROOFREADING: MY FIRST PROFESSIONAL MISTAKE
Proofreading: My first professional mistake.
Everyone makes mistakes, right?
This article is about my first professional mistake. It involves writing … well, more specifically, proofreading.
And it was a doozy.
My first job out of college was publicizing the successes of Tycer-Fultz-Bellack, the Palo Alto, California-based Advertising/PR agency that happened to be the largest high-tech shop West of the Mississippi River (at least at the time).
Among my responsibilities was writing and disseminating news releases announcing new accounts we had won at TFB.
So one day, Susan (one of our Sr. Account Executives) came storming up to my cubicle, threw down a newspaper, and pointedly asked,
“What the #$%&@ is that?!?!!?”
I quickly glanced over and saw that it was a copy of a local industry rag that prominently featured a story about one of TFB’s recent account wins.
So that’s what I told her.
“No! Not that! Read it!”
So I started to read it, to myself.
“Out loud!” she said, the anger rising in her voice.
So I began …
“Tycer-Fultz-Bellack today announced it has won XYZcorp’s $1 million advertising and pubic relations account.”
I stopped reading. Pubic relations?!?!?
Yeah. Pubic. As in pubic hairs.
I was mortified!
“Where in the crap did that come from?” I wondered.
That’s what she wanted to know too.
I pulled out a copy of the original release and there it was in black & white:
“pubic relations.”
OUCH!
Yup. The Editor had run our news release verbatim.
Later that day I discovered the rest of the story: Every single person working on the XYZcorp account had missed the missing letter “L.” Everyone.
- The two Junior Account Executives,
- The advertising Account Executive,
- Susan,
- The Account Supervisor,
- The agency partner on the XYZcorp account, and
- Even our client contact at XYZcorp.
All of ’em.
In fact, it’s probably the only thing that kept be from being fired on the spot.
Did I learn a lesson? Absolutely!
LESSON LEARNED:
The only way to proofread a final document is to read it aloud.
Doing so means you’ll catch mistyped words, like “Pubic” when you meant to write “Public.”
And so that’s what I do every time I proofread something today … I read it out loud.
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So how ’bout you? What mistakes have you had on the job? And what lessons did you learn from them? Please share them in the Comments section below. Thanks.
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A Fractional Marketing Executive, David L. Politis works with organizations on a part-time basis across the entire Marketing Mix, either as a consultant or as an officer/employee. His 1st book — 66 RULES for Publicity Success: Boost Your Company’s Value For Pennies On The Dollar — was published in late 2016.
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