Nobody wants to look like an idiot. Unfortunately, all of us will have our reputation hurt by something at some point (very specific isn’t it?). There is good news though, there are steps you can take to prevent some personal scenarios of public idiocy. Here are my tips for sustaining a positive image while writing, and commenting on blogs:


1) Proof Read Out Loud:


My blog posts are intended to be conversational. They are written in the same way I would talk to you in person. With that said, my posts could be edited in the same fashion an english paper would be, but then they would lose their conversational manor. We do not talk like english papers in person; so neither should a casual blog.

So what do I do to edit my posts? I read them out loud, over and over again. When you read something out loud, your mind tends to add emphases and tone in certain places naturally. I’ve found that if I edit my blog traditionally, I lose that. So in order to preserve my intended tone, I read each post out loud to myself.

I find that as I read, I also add words or phrases that aren’t there. That’s because my mind thinks they should be there, so I add them to make it sound better as if they were there in the first place. When I’m reading along and I stutter, I know I’ve come across an area that needs editing. When I can read all the way through without stuttering, I know that particular post is ready to be published.

This whole process can take a few days. The more space I give between my editing sessions, the more errors, or I should say “stutter moments,” I tend to pick up on. As I stated in an earlier post:


“Once I have written it, I usually wait a day to go back, revise points, and fix grammatical errors. Why wait a day? How do you think typos occur? I think that we miss those right off the bat because our minds are “proud” of it’s accomplishment and “feel” the work correct as is.”

Every time I edit, I find that still holds true. I spend a lot of time writing my posts to ensure the highest quality.


2) Tenses


Every writer knows there are 3 tenses: Past, Present, and Future. I remember in middle school that teachers made sure we focused in one tense, and never used second person in an essay. I still stand by that rule when doing a professional write up, but not in my blog.

If you’ve ever held a conversation with another human being before, you know that typical exchanges aren’t restricted to just once tense. We all bounce around using the appropriate tense for the moment. Since I want to be conversational, it only seems appropriate that “talking” would carry over to my posts. This is indeed the case.

If you dissect my posts in a formal editing fashion, you will probably find all sorts of issues with it. I often bounce around using 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person throughout a post. But if you read them as if I’m talking to you in person, they don’t sound too bad at all. The key here is to understand when and when not to use formal skills or conversation skills, when writing. If you mix them up or combine them, people often tend to question your intelligence.


3) Commenting


Now here’s a topic inspired by some comments I’ve received. What I’ve seen, way too frequently, are people posting comments in response to a post when it’s obvious they haven’t even read the entire thing. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to make yourself look foolish on the internet.

If you don’t take the time to read the entire post, don’t comment. Regardless of how ridiculous the argument presented might seem, you never know when you might have missed something important. It’s often the case that I make my strongest points near the end of my post. If you only read half of it, you don’t get my full point.

I always laugh when I receive feedback from the people who tell me I just don’t get it and correct me on what I’ve actually proven in the final paragraphs. I don’t need to call out people about their comments, my posts do it for me. I know I’m not perfect and I do make mistakes, but if your going to correct me about one of my posts, you better read the entire thing first. If you don’t, and what you’ve said is actually in it, you look stupid and lazy.

If I’m wrong I want my readers to tell me. However, if you don’t even bother to read all the way through, your comment usually ends up moot.



It’s certainly possible to “edit” your reputation once you’ve made a mistake, but it’s not very easy on the internet. We often forget that what you say on the internet, even if you’ve deleted it, is still probably there thanks to cached data. More often then not, someone can pull up something you may not want recovered. “Preventative maintenance” of your reputation is hardly a bad thing.


Until next time,


EE