Do not post unedited work anywhere, ever. Particularly if you're trying to present yourself well. If online dating is important to you, and finding a great partner should be important, then do your future partner the courtesy of taking a few minutes to read through your whole profile and edit it. Cues such as grammar, spelling and writing style are often seen as more meaningful about you as a person than your actual message. Writing mistakes will make you seem either lazy or uneducated. Basically, you're not going to turn anyone off because your spelling is perfect, but you will definitely turn off a large amount of people because your spelling is bad.
Feeling panicked yet? Here are some tips on proof reading work.
1. Cut 10%. Go through your profile and try to cut out as much as you can while maintaining the meaning. And again, are there superfluous words in your text? Words adding nothing to your message? The cleaner and sharper your writing, the clearer your message will be. Unless a word is fulfilling a critical purpose, get rid of it.
2. Sepll-Chekecr. Make sure there is a spell-checker wherever you are writing. Some browsers also don't have a spell-checker built in. You should be editing your profile in a Word document (or similar) anyway so that you can work on it over a number of days - writing it directly onto the webpage means you aren't taking long enough to think about it and edit it.
3. Read it aloud. Try to always read your work aloud. It is even better if you can get a friend to read it aloud, because then you will be able to hear where other people struggle with phrasing or meaning. If you have to explain to your friend that it should be read a certain way, then you have failed in your writing. You never get a chance to explain to your reader, so make sure you don't need to. If you can't get someone to read it aloud to you, you can always try a text to speech feature where the computer reads it to you. Not as good, but it will highlight mistakes that you might have skimmed over yourself.
4. If you didn't get a friend to read it before, get them to do it now to ensure that your profile communicates what you think it does. Get them to tell you what the gist that they understood from your profile was.
5. Now, I want you to read it aloud in a stalker or pornstar voice. Is it offensive? Then change it. Creepy? Change it! No one is going to be doing you any favours online, so don't make them need to. If it could be misinterpreted in any way, change it.
After you have done all that, it's time to take it live!
Feeling panicked yet? Here are some tips on proof reading work.
1. Cut 10%. Go through your profile and try to cut out as much as you can while maintaining the meaning. And again, are there superfluous words in your text? Words adding nothing to your message? The cleaner and sharper your writing, the clearer your message will be. Unless a word is fulfilling a critical purpose, get rid of it.
2. Sepll-Chekecr. Make sure there is a spell-checker wherever you are writing. Some browsers also don't have a spell-checker built in. You should be editing your profile in a Word document (or similar) anyway so that you can work on it over a number of days - writing it directly onto the webpage means you aren't taking long enough to think about it and edit it.
3. Read it aloud. Try to always read your work aloud. It is even better if you can get a friend to read it aloud, because then you will be able to hear where other people struggle with phrasing or meaning. If you have to explain to your friend that it should be read a certain way, then you have failed in your writing. You never get a chance to explain to your reader, so make sure you don't need to. If you can't get someone to read it aloud to you, you can always try a text to speech feature where the computer reads it to you. Not as good, but it will highlight mistakes that you might have skimmed over yourself.
4. If you didn't get a friend to read it before, get them to do it now to ensure that your profile communicates what you think it does. Get them to tell you what the gist that they understood from your profile was.
5. Now, I want you to read it aloud in a stalker or pornstar voice. Is it offensive? Then change it. Creepy? Change it! No one is going to be doing you any favours online, so don't make them need to. If it could be misinterpreted in any way, change it.
After you have done all that, it's time to take it live!
About the Author:
For more great advice on how to present yourself online, see "The Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles" on Amazon: Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating on Amazon
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