Month: April 2026

Zooming along

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Things I wish I had known at the time I began my editing business, #1: Zoom.

The awful truth is that before late 2018, I had never even heard of the videoconferencing platform known as Zoom. There are other such platforms that exist, such as GoToMeeting and MS Teams, but Zoom was the first one of which I had ever heard.

It was actually quite embarrassing how I first became aware of Zoom.

I had just started my editing business—put in the paperwork with the state, launched a website with the help of a friend—and I needed to network with other editors. I had just joined the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and decided to look at their directory to contact other editors in the state where I live. One editor’s profile looked particularly interesting, and a look at her website told me she really knew what she was doing when it came to editing. I made up my mind that I really wanted to talk to her.

This editor was extremely organized, and in order to speak with her, I was going to have to sign up on her website and get on her schedule. Okay. There was only one problem: She made all her calls via Zoom.

“Zoom?!” I thought. “What the heck is Zoom? Isn’t it a PBS children’s show from the 1970s that I used to watch when I was five years old?” What made matters worse was that Zoom required the use of a webcam and microphone. The old desktop computer I was using at the time had neither. I ended up being able to contact the editor, but I did so over the phone, which was rather embarrassing. I feared that I looked like a backward person who didn’t know the latest technology.

Fast forward seven and a half years: Today I use Zoom on a regular basis to meet with one of my regular clients, and another friend recently showed me how to initiate and host meetings myself. I have gotten pretty good with Zoom. Six years ago, I bought a laptop that had a webcam and microphone (as all of them do now), and I am still using it for Zoom.

Now, if only videoconferencing didn’t remind me so much of the telephone conversations on The Jetsons…

When Spellcheck isn’t enough

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So you’ve just written a research paper, a grant, or another document. You don’t want to spend the time editing, so you rely on Word’s Spellcheck feature to flag and fix any errors.

Bad idea.

Why?

Spellcheck will not catch everything. Sure, it will tell you if you typed “hosre” instead of “horse” or “sodlier” instead of “soldier.” It will also tell you if there is an extra space between two words or if you typed a grammatically incorrect term, such as “ain’t.” (Not that you would ever use “ain’t” in formal writing unless a character in your novel says it…right?)

True, Spellcheck is a very helpful tool. It has saved me embarrassment when I have written one of my “bugaboo” words of which I can never remember the correct spelling (such as “Mediterranean” or “genealogy”). The little red line that forms right after I type the word instantly tells me that I did something wrong, so I can fix it. Spellcheck will even suggest the correct spelling for me.

However, it does have its caveats.

For example, Spellcheck cannot distinguish between homonyms. (Homonyms, if you might remember, are words which sound the same but have different meanings.) Many writers, for example, confuse “there,” “their,” and “they’re” in writing. An author might write, “I can’t believe those receptionists make me fill out those forms every single time I go to the doctor’s office. There so stupid.” In this case, “there” is used incorrectly (the correct word is “they’re”), but Spellcheck sees this is okay because “there” is spelled correctly. The same holds true for “your” and “you’re.” (Not to be a snob, but it always makes me cringe when I read a piece of writing that confuses the two. “Your” is a possessive; “you’re” is a contraction for “you are.”)

Nor does Spellcheck recognize many complicated scientific terms. Granted, a lot of terms have been added to its dictionary since its advent, but occasionally a scientific author will type a term only to have it flagged. It is a minor inconvenience, but it is irritating, nonetheless.

What do you think are the best things about Spellcheck? The worst things?