Minding the Basics

Let me start by stating a few salient facts:

1. I am mildly dyslexic and thus have a horrid time with spelling
2. Punctuation remains a sore spot for me thus I have to rigorously review and correct it
3. My lack of social skills often translates into overly formal rhetoric

This is part of my daily life, my business life, and is greatly magnified when I write poetry.

For my daily life, I try my best to use spellcheckers, to engage in proofreading, and to never send something off in a fit of temper since I can almost guarantee I will have included errors which will make me look sillier than I truly am.  In my business life I have auto-spell checkers on everything, I play most conversations over in my head before I speak out, and follow the same rule concerning temper.  In my poetry, all of the above as well as letting most poems sit for a few days so I can review them with some perspective.

Fine and dandy and all good basic advice, but why the hell have I decided to post anything about it as a blog entry?

Because, looking at the Poetry Stream I see spelling., punctuation, and grammatical errors so glaring that even I notice them.

Spelling and grammatical errors fall under the "author obligation" for me.  It is the author's responsibility to get them right and let the reader concentrate on the poem's imagery and meaning rather than mechanics and structure.  So I would beg everyone to increase their credibility by going through the following basic steps BEFORE  submitting anything.

1. Run Spellcheck
2. Proofread for grammar & punctuation

That's it, really.  those two things will increase your skill and decrease your reader's distractions, both of which I can only assume any serious poet would desire.

Oh, and when I ran the spell checker on this message, TWELVE errors.  Additionally, one grammatical error, and zero punctuation. 

See what I mean?