Why Can’t We See Our Own Typos?

September 11, 2014

Why are typos so easy to miss during the proofreading and editing process?

According to psychologist Tom Stafford at the University of Sheffield, the devil is in the details; that is, the details are difficult to notice because your brain generalizes the simple components of sentences (like letters into words, and words into sentences), so it can focus more on complex tasks (like combining sentences into complex ideas).

In other words, your brain is working hard at not just putting together correctly spelled words and grammatically accurate sentences, but also conveying big ideas. “When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning,” Stafford said to Wired. “It’s a very high-level task.”

But despite the tendency of writers to become over-familiar with a document (and less apt to notice errors), backspace is still the third most used button on the keyboard during the initial drafting process, according to Microsoft. Furthermore, some typists—touch typists—know without looking at the screen that they’ve made a mistake, and can quickly correct errors without even looking at their fingers.

“There’s a lag between the signal to hit the key and the actual hitting of the key,” Stafford explained, speaking of the brain’s involvement in alerting the typist to slow down and recognize any adjustments she or he may need to make.

So how can we be better proofreaders? According to Stafford, you can make your own errors easier to catch by reformatting your document and making the content appear unfamiliar. Adjust the font and colors, or print out your document for marking up. “Once you’ve learned something in a particular way,” Stafford said, “it’s hard to see the details without changing the visual form.”


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