You’ve poured your heart and soul into an article and your finger is hovering over the Publish button. But what if you’ve missed a typo, or even missed the point?
Whether it’s a medical article, wellbeing blog, app content or clinical white paper, I created this checklist to make sure I feel confident before publishing or submitting a piece of copy. Feel free to borrow it, bookmark it, or save it as your own.
1 Think About Your Goals
Does your article answer a question, promote a product, explain your business or drive the reader to take action? Think about what your aims or goals were when you started writing, and check that you’ve met each of them. If your client provided a list of objectives, check you’ve met these, too.
Once you know the content feels right, it’s time to see if you’ve got everything in the right order. Have you started with key information, leaving less important facts until last? Read the article from start to finish to make sure the flow feels right.
2 Watch Your Tone
The copy you write should match your personality or reflect the brand you are writing for. We all know that white papers or academic articles will be written in a very different way to friendly blog posts.
Think about your language too – are the words you use likely to be easy for your target audience to understand? Are your sentences written in a straightforward manner that makes them easier to read? Where possible, cut them down and neaten them up so that your audience won’t give up part way through.
3 Avoid Repetition
Try to make a point once and then move on to the next. You can break bigger and more important points down into smaller ideas, but avoid saying the same thing twice. A reader will get bored if the content starts to feel old.
We all have words we love to overuse but often don’t realise we’re doing it. Tools like ProWritingAid can help you discover which yours are – common culprits are very, so, really, interesting, and nice. In this article, the word check has probably been overused! Once you know where your weakness is, you can begin replacing these words with something more powerful and less annoying to the reader.
4 Check for Accuracy
Your computer will help with spellcheck and grammar, but make sure you query each suggestion as they are not always accurate. Hearing your work read aloud can help, too. Either read it yourself, or get Word to read it to you.
Print your work, read it on a tablet, or check it on your phone. Seeing it in a different way can help you spot mistakes that weren’t obvious before.
Check that your apostrophes are in the right place – saying the words out loud can be helpful for ensuring that contractions like you’re (you are) don’t get mixed up with your. If you’ve used hyphens, make sure you’ve been consistent throughout. Reading both top up and top-up in an article can be irritating for a reader.
Think about accessibility, too. Have you added alternative text for any visuals, and made sure your content suits screen readers? If you add an emoji, make sure it’s in addition to any words so that the meaning of the sentence is not lost.
5 Final Checks
Many programmes will let you check what your article or blog will look like on a desktop, tablet or phone. As we use these screens interchangeably, it’s important that your work looks good however it’s being viewed. Use the preview function to check for formatting, spacing and consistency with bullet points and punctuation.
When you get to the end of the checklist, you can hit Send or Publish with confidence!
Sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get content writing right. If you need a copywriter who can expertly manage content creation, style, tone of voice, or connecting with your audience, book expert health writing today.
wow!! 62Polish and Perfect: Your Essential Pre-Publish Checklist