Writing Tip: Read your Stuff Outloud
There is nothing worse than reading something you wrote years ago and finding terrible and obvious mistakes. But it happens to the best of us. One trick to help bring out the mistakes without having to wait years, is to read your writing out loud.
After writing several paragraphs it is easy to go proof-read quickly by skimming the sentences to yourself. But because the material is fresh on your mind, your mind tends to gloss over the words and just check general meaning. Reading something out loud AND listening to what you are saying while you say it helps fix that problem.
First reading out loud is a lot slower than reading to yourself. It forces you to examine each word individually.
Second you are using multiple senses which should help absorb what’s being said better than just reading it to yourself.
Lastly, by reading your words out loud, it is easy to discover new and better ways to say something or it can help find a problem such as using a word too many times.
