Thursday

Blogging Tip #21

Today's tip is much less controversial than it was a few years ago: should you edit blog posts that have already been published? It used to be akin to cheating. I always corrected though. I'm a writer and an editor, and when I see a typo or mistake in grammar after-the-fact, I change it. Why? Because the public judges you by your work - in this case, the written word. If you have the opportnity opportunity to correct a mistake, why not take it? You don't even have to be this obvious about it. I figure Blogger included an editing feature for us to use, otherwise they wouldn't have added the feature to begin with.
 Who makes up these rules anyway?

3 comments:

Marian Allen said...

I absolutely believe you should edit published blog posts. Maybe blogging is "supposed" to be hot-off-the-brain freewriting, but that doesn't mean you can't edit it LATER.

Web logs (where "blog" comes from, in case someone didn't know) are anything from writing-without-a-net stream-of-consciousness to carefully pre-written articles. The "rule" doesn't apply, unless you SAY you're slapping things down and you're really rehearsing your ad-libs in advance.

My two-cents' worth.

Marian Allen

M. Mark Miller's Blog said...

I can almost hear those pesky typos and punctuation errors that refuse to reveal themselves until after they've been posted. I'm sure they're laughing at me, and I take joy in editing to snuff the little bastards out.

But, I think if we discover we've made factual errors or change our minds, we should make it obvious that our posts were changed--and why.

I like the way the pros at the New York Times and Salon.Com do that.

--Mark
M. Mark Miller

A Girl Named Me said...

There's one "rule" I'm glad I never heard! I've not made substantial changes to any posts, but if I flub a spelling or say something that isn't clear after reading it, I'll go back and fix, too. No big deal.