You need an editor. If you publish your writing, you need an editor. Let me be crystal clear, when I say “publish” I don’t mean books or magazines, at least not exclusively. I mean: if you put your written words in front of the eyes of other human beings (or intelligent animals) you need to have somebody edit it – and that somebody can be you. I am not asking for the world, your writing does not have to be perfect, but it should be free of glaring errors that make your writing difficult to understand and painful to read.

Typographical Errors (typos)

One of the most common problems in writing is that the writer’s fingers can start to move faster than their brain. This can lead to keys on the keyboard simply being pressed out of order. A few examples from my own writing:

• the becomes teh
• have becomes ahve
• Paris becomes PAris

These kinds of errors can be detected by many different text-editing programs, and in more recent years by web browsers. Firefox, for example, will detect many spelling problems and underline the offending words to draw your attention to them. Please don’t ignore them.

Subject-verb Disagreement

This can be a more difficult problem to track down, particularly if English is not your native language, but it makes a tremendous difference in how your writing is perceived by your audience. Mignon Fogarty once referred to this as “the illness that kills your credibility” and I, for one, agree with her. These kinds of errors can creep into our writing when we don’t take into account the way that words in our sentences interact with one another. In some cases this can stem from a lack of familiarity with the language.

• Dave and Amy is coming over tonight — is should be are, there are two people coming over
• that team are mean during the game — are should be is, the team is being referred to as a single entity
• either Amy or Dave are going to help tutor him — are should be is, the two individuals are treated separately

While these are trivial examples, there are more complex rules and scenarios that are worth reviewing. I learned a couple of things while writings this post. There are some excellent examples of subject-verb disagreement in this post by Richard Nordquist.

Verb Tense Disagreement

The last subject I’d likes to cover is somewhat related to the last one and can be just as difficult to track down, particularly if you are not paying close attention. Verb tense disagreements occur when a sentence contains more than one verb and they appear in different tenses. For example one verb in a past tense, and another in a present or future tense.

• John slurps his soup when he ate — slurps could be slurped or *ate could be eats
• Adam and Jamie make explosions when they were on TV — make could be made or were could be are

This one can occasionally be a bit more tricky to resolve because there are almost always multiple possible solutions. Selecting the correct one for your piece depends on the context, and often the verb tense of the surrounding sentences.

Wrapping up

While this is far from an exhaustive list of crimes that writers (including me, on occasion) perpetuate against the English language, they are some of the most common and often the most distracting. Simply giving your writing a once-over can help to eliminate many of these problems. Even when you are not 100% certain about the rule, many of these errors will simply “sound wrong” if you read them aloud. Correcting them immediately will help make you a better writer and save confusion and stress on the part of your readers.

Science & Technology Shows

Aussie Geek Podcast – Bloody Awesome Tech. Two Aussies (Dave and Cait) and a Canadian (that’s me!) put their unique slants on the technology news, applications sites and services each week (or so).

CommandN – Amber Macarthur and friends bring you a weekly dose of tech news.

Digital Planet (BBC) – The BBC’s weekly technology show looking at trends in tech and how they affect your daily life, hosted by Gareth Mitchell.

Discovery (BBC) – A weekly science documentary examining hot trends and profound topics in the world of science.

Knightcast – Tuning tech into your way of life, Knightwise offers a look at ways to make technology work for you, instead of the other way around.

Mac OS Ken – A daily dose of Mac (and iPhone) news delivered by the sarcastic, funny and insightful Ken Ray.

One Minute Tip (TP) – Byte-sized pieces of knowledge to help you be just a bit more productive with your everyday tech.

Podcasters’ Emporium (LPN) – James Williams and Dave Gray cover all the topics you need to know to become a better podcaster.

Quirks and Quarks (CBC) – Bob MacDonald’s weekly look at science and technology from the CBC mothership.  The show looks at new and emerging sciences and technologies, often with an eye towards how they affect our environment.

Run As Radio (PWOP) – Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes provide a weekly batch of insightful trends and topics for the IT pro.

Security Now (TWiT) – Steve Gibson’s weekly dose of security news and security-related topics is very insigtful  (even better if you skip over Leo Laporte’s TWiT ads).

Search Engine (TVO) – Jesse Brown’s brutally honest opinions and reviews of life in the Internet age.

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe – Members of the New England Skeptical Society debunk the myths and frauds of the scientific age.

The Skeptic’s Guide 5×5 – A shorter companion podcast for the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.

Spark (CBC) – Focusing on the softer side of tech, trends and how these things work their way into our day-to-day lives.

Software Development Shows

Hanselminutes (PWOP) – Scott Hanselman’s weekly look at software and technology topics with his inside the MS machine take on things.

Herding Code – A group of “real-world” developers discussing topics and technology that affect code-slingers everywhere.

.NET Rocks! (PWOP) – .NET Rocks brings together the incomparable Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell who interview cool and interesting people in the Microsoft developer space.

Polymorphic Podcast – Craig Shoemaker’s periodic exploration of software and best practices for .NET developers was one of the first software podcasts I started listening to.

Stack Overflow – Jeff atwood and Joel Spolsky’s companion podcast to the Stack Overflow Q&A site project.  A weekly chat about the project, interesting Stack Overflow questions and other software topics.

Humour & Entertainment Shows

Mondays (PWOP) – Mondays is a comedy show from the crew at PWOP that’s released on a somewhat sporadic basis.  This one’s definitely NSFW — unless you have headphones. =)

Star Trek: Defiant – A fan-fiction podcast set a number of years after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis. Produced by the crew at Pendant Audio with a fairly talented voice crew.  It’s a good listen.

Two Schooners (LPN) – Dave Gray and James Williams get together again for a somewhat less serious show covering the weird and hilarious stories of the week over a schooner of their favourite brew.

Business / News Shows

Campbell’s Comment (CKNW) – Michael Campbell’s daily business comment.

Get It Done Guy (QD Tips) – Sever Robins provides great productivity tips, business tips and general “how-to-cope-with-life-after-college” tips.

Modern Manners Guy (QD Tips) – The Modern Manners Guy’s advice on how not to inconvenience those around you.

Nutrition Diva (QD Tips) – Eat better, and learn about food myths that’ll keep you on the healthy track.

Reality Check (CKNW) – Bruce Allen’s pull-no-punches daily comment about social issues and pop culture.

Sports Comment (CKNW) – Neil McRae and others provide a comment on the sports world from a Vancouver perspective.

Grammar / Language Shows

Grammar Girl (QD Tips) – Mignon Fogarty’s weekly language show will help you tackle the tricky issues of trying to write successfully in the English language.

Kalye Speak – Learn tagalog as filipino’s actually speak it.  By far the most successful podcast of its kind.

Podictionary – Charles Hodgeson gives great background on the etymology of words that we use every day. The show is insightful, fun and concise.

It’s been fun putting this list together.  I’d love to hear your comments on these shows, or others that you listen to regularly.