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> Part of your proofreading process should also be reading your posts aloud. My editor encouraged me to do this, and I was amazed at how effectively it catches

> Part of your proofreading process should also be reading your posts aloud. My editor encouraged me to do this, and I was amazed at how effectively it catches careless errors and unnatural wording. A related writing hack for mac OS users, is to use the built-in text-to-speech tools Accessibility > Speech and make the computer read your drafts to you. See info for how to setup a keyboard shortcut here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem8qpMmnaBFYOgV32gdMc/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...

chimen 6y ago
Agree, by far the most praised addition to Typely (https://editor.typely.com https://editor.typely.com)
inquirerofsorts 6y ago
For anyone not using Mac's, there's a few text-to-speech offerings online if you are ok with the privacy implications of sending that data to a 3rd party. Use it a lot for public conversational threads and mailing lists that I am expected to read but have low signal to noise ratios. I'm not sure about what offline alternatives exist.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Windows also has TTS built-in; see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hear-text-read-aloud-with-narrator-040f16c1-4632-b64e-110a-da4a0ac56917 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hear-text-read-a.... Else, you can (I guess?) copy / paste it into Google Translate as well.
ritchiea 6y ago
Is TTS actually useful for editing writing? I haven't tried TTS on my mac in years but my experience with TTS is it's very utilitarian. It will certainly speak the words you input but the best use of reading your own writing aloud is to get a feel for how the text sounds in a natural human speaking voice. Because if it sounds good in a speaking voice, it will sound good and feel correctly paced and worded to a reader. TTS doesn't interpret pacing and anticipate the way a thoughtful human reader would read text aloud. Which defeats much of the purpose of reading your own text aloud. But TTS should help you find grammar mistakes, typos and missing words.
BurningFrog 6y ago
I saw someone claim that changing the font to Comic Sans made her see the text freshly and catch many problems.

chimen 6y ago

Agree, by far the most praised addition to Typely (https://editor.typely.com https://editor.typely.com)

inquirerofsorts 6y ago

For anyone not using Mac's, there's a few text-to-speech offerings online if you are ok with the privacy implications of sending that data to a 3rd party. Use it a lot for public conversational threads and mailing lists that I am expected to read but have low signal to noise ratios. I'm not sure about what offline alternatives exist.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Windows also has TTS built-in; see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hear-text-read-aloud-with-narrator-040f16c1-4632-b64e-110a-da4a0ac56917 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hear-text-read-a.... Else, you can (I guess?) copy / paste it into Google Translate as well.

ritchiea 6y ago

Is TTS actually useful for editing writing? I haven't tried TTS on my mac in years but my experience with TTS is it's very utilitarian. It will certainly speak the words you input but the best use of reading your own writing aloud is to get a feel for how the text sounds in a natural human speaking voice. Because if it sounds good in a speaking voice, it will sound good and feel correctly paced and worded to a reader. TTS doesn't interpret pacing and anticipate the way a thoughtful human reader would read text aloud. Which defeats much of the purpose of reading your own text aloud. But TTS should help you find grammar mistakes, typos and missing words.

BurningFrog 6y ago

I saw someone claim that changing the font to Comic Sans made her see the text freshly and catch many problems.