Lack of Quality in Printed Material

The lack of quality in printed material is appalling. Virtually everything I read contains either typos, misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and/or grammatical errors. These materials include books by well-known authors, official correspondence I have received in the mail (both electronically and by snail mail), most news articles I have read, and legal documents which I have read.

Does no one have pride in their work anymore? You would think with the technology available today, at the minimum, a written work would not contain typos or misspelled words. Of course, none of us is perfect, but, when someone is submitting something in writing that will be read by millions of readers, every "i" should be dotted and every "t" should be crossed. Everyone is in such a hurry to get things done these days that quality goes by the wayside.

When buying a product, such as an automobile, we expect, and are entitled, to receive something which was manufactured without "mistakes." Why should it be any different with the printed word? Sure, it takes a little bit longer to get the item out there, but is a few hours to have each document proofread thoroughly asking too much? I don't think so.

Some people will think I'm being nit-picky, but I was taught that if you are going to do something, you should do it right. In addition, when I was in school, you were required to know how to read and write properly, not just enough to get by. From what I have seen in the past 10 years or so, if a person is functionally literate, and sometimes not even that, they are able to graduate from high school and some even from college. And, yes, I have seen it with my own two eyes. My daughter graduated from college last year, and I have seen things that some of her friends have written to her.

I was employed as a word processor for 30 years. I worked for two of the world's top employers, and at both of these jobs, my supervisors and peers nicknamed me "Eagle-Eye." There could be a document that had been finalized by everyone from the writer to the proofreader, and then they would bring it to me to make sure that there were no mistakes. Every document that I completed and gave back to a writer was 99% to 100% accurate, because I thoroughly proofread every document.

I suppose I will just continue to feel frustrated whenever I read something and wish that I could have proofread it before it was published.