The supposed last words of the soon-to-be-hanged Marquis de Favras after reading his death sentence in 1790:
Whether or not the Marquis actually said this before execution, here's this week's relevant actionable tip, so obvious as to be exactly the thing that we often skip:
Check your spelling. Again.
How many times have you carefully composed and rewritten and edited a document, only to see a spelling error the moment AFTER you click send on the email?
Yes, of course we all know that spell check is flawed. See, for proof, the following verse, a literally nonsense rhyme that would nevertheless pass an automated spell check with flying colors:
Eye halve a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
But just because the tool is imperfect does not mean we should not use it to supplement our own thorough reviews.
We need to be reminded of the obvious...because we forget! Consider the "Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve," in which the psychologist who lended the term his name found that people can forget up to 50% of new information within an hour and 70% within 24 hours.
True, the necessity of faithfully and systematically working on all steps of the editing processes as we check and polish our drafts can't possibly be new information. But is it something you always do on everything you write?