Unless you’re one of the Chick-fil-A cows and misspelling “chicken” is part of your advertising strategy, proofreading is an important, but often overlooked step in the creative process. This is especially true since excellent email communication is now a required piece of good customer service. Besides looking sloppy and unprofessional, even a single typo can lead to unexpected, and sometimes, horrifying results. Investing a few minutes to proofread before hitting print or send can help you make a good impression with your customers.

Here are 5 tips:

1. Go beyond spellcheck. Computer checkers are good to use as a proofreading tool, but they are not foolproof so don’t stop there. Digital spell checkers may not flag incorrect use of homophones (e.g., “to,” “two,” “too”) or other contextual errors (“then” for “than” or “he” for “the”). Worse, some of the errors missed by digital checkers may change the entire meaning of your message (“are” instead of “aren’t”).

2. See it with fresh eyes. Take a break between writing your text and proofreading it. Circling back after some distance can help you spot mistakes more easily. Review your text three times – once for spelling, once for punctuation and once for grammar.

3. Read it backwards. Reading your words independently, rather than in context, can make any misspellings jump right off the page. If it doesn’t sound right, it may not be spelled correctly, and probably deserves a second look.

4. Be consistent. Many words have alternate acceptable spellings. For example, “spellcheck,” “spell-check,” and “spell check” are all accurate. Though all three are correct, pick one spelling of a word and stick with it.

5. Read your text out loud. Insert proper punctuation where you “hear” pauses. Make a change if a sentence sounds too long, too fragmented, or too ambiguous.

As the Royal Family can attest, no one is immune to making mistakes, but proofreading your content can help you prevent embarrassing errors in grammar.

To save yourself time and worry, let us use our experience, knowledge, and professional editing tools to create and proofread your content for you.

Like many of us, I am on my maiden voyage of “USS Raising A Teenager.” As such, I am in a constant state of waiting, watching, evaluating, tweaking and re-tweaking my parenting methods in an effort to discover the magic formula. I may never find it, but occasionally I do unearth a nugget that I feel the need to share.

So the story goes … my teenager was grounded. No after school activities, sleepovers, hangout sessions, and worst of all for her, NO ELECTRONICS. No texting, talking, skypeing, instagramming … the social death knell to a teenager. The first few days she was furious with me. And miserable. And surly.

And then, suddenly … not. Delightfully not. I noticed her head was up and she was smiling. She helped me cook dinner. She climbed into bed with me and we talked about friends and boys. I heard her upstairs laughing and singing songs with one brother, she played two hours of lacrosse in the backyard with the other.

Where had my surly teenager gone? And how could I replace her with this delightful creature on a permanent basis?

The conclusion is obvious. When she unplugged, she stepped outside of her stressful world of teenage tumult. She engaged. She paid attention. She enjoyed. You know where I’m going with this.

Don’t we all need that? Don’t we owe it to our friends, our families, our children to truly unplug and do the same?

• Face facts, you’re online more than you think you are. According to CNN, Americans spend at least eight hours a day staring at a screen. And more than one-third of smartphone users get online before they get out of bed. Um, yikes.
• On-line multi-tasking should make us more efficient, yet it really doesn’t. According to John Medina, author of Brain Rules, once a person is interrupted by something that’s not work related while on-line, it can take up to 50 percent longer to finish an assignment. Further research suggests that each time a person is sidetracked, the brain takes up to 45 minutes to refocus.
• It’s hurting our health. It’s increasing our stress (heard of Social Media Anxiety Disorder?), hurting our sleep, and straining our bodies.
• Our glut of connectivity is making us less connected. We aren’t connecting because we aren’t talking. It’s hurting our interpersonal skills. As one very astute high school student said, “We’re the most connected generation in history, “but we suck at intimacy.”
• And don’t get me started on what it does to kids. Children’s excessive technology use has the potential to cause attention, brain and behavioral problems. No bueno.

Listen, I love my smartphone as much as anyone. But I can tell you first hand, putting it down feels good. Not just to you, but to those around you.

My teenager is no longer grounded. I haven’t shared this with her, and she hasn’t asked. She’s pretty happy these days and I’m riding this wave for as long as I can. I’m enjoying it. And I think she is too.

Perhaps we should all ground ourselves from our devices from time to time?