Not Only Spell Check

Too many students rely on spell check as their final editing tool.  Spell check is only a beginning.  It will not identify all words spelled incorrectly, especially if the words are real. For example, this sentence makes it past spell check:

“There wear too special affects that blue me away.”

(“There were two special effects that blew me away.”)

I recently asked my students to submit some errors (real or fictional) that made it past spell check:  This one came from a “Hollywood and History” assignment on Remember the Titans:

“There was no Vagina High School Hall of Fame in 1971—although it does exist today.”

Another student suggested the reason why spell check is not more efficient:

“If their where no eras, Mike wood bee out of wok.”

You can avoid such errors by having friends read your work.  

Resources

Purdue OWL Writing Lab and The University of North Carolina have good pages on editing and proofreading.