Constant Content

I'm not sure where I heard it, but I remember reading that there is a site where you can sign up to submit papers or articles to receive spelling and grammar advice. You have to review other peoples' papers in order to gain points, and after you get enough points you can post your own articles.

Does anyone know of this site? If not, do you know of any other online/offline source for spelling and grammar checking.

It seems to me that this would be helpful. Even after I go through my article several times, there's often something I miss, and it's best to fix it before I submit it and possibly save a little time.

Thanks, any help would be great!

Hmm, it's probably not a good idea to send your article out into the wild for spelling and grammar checks, because there's no telling if someone might reuse it or something. Also, it no longer becomes unique if you make it available on other websites. Unless you plan on selling usage rights only, keep the article private and upload it only on constant-content.

The forum veterans here can help you with grammar, but they can't check the entire article. You can post snippets if you want and get positive critique.

Here's what I did when I first started out, maybe it can help you:

I took a week long break after getting two successive rejections and studied grammar. Specifically, I used the Video Aided Series: English Grammar DVD's. It's an awesome teaching guide for a quick refresher. However, it's only for foundational grammar, so it won't make a master out of anyone. If you don't have this video series, then any grammar book will do.

The week-long study improved my success rate in CC, but what really tipped me over the edge was when I used the Windows Speech program in the Control Panel and let Microsoft Sam read out my entire article. I know it sounds weird, but actually hearing my article out loud has a profound effect on my proofreading. You can achieve the same results be reading the article out loud yourself or letting someone else read it for you, but for me the computer voice is very useful since you can see the words highlighted one by one and adjust the rate of speech. The only downside is the monotonous, guttural, E.T.-like voice, but I eventually learned to like it.

It's nice to let someone proofread, but what you really want is the ability to proofread yourself. By studying and using the Speech method above, I've increased my ratio from a 66% rate of acceptance (for every 3 of my articles, 2 are accepted and 1 is rejected), to about 90 % (so far. I hope it improves ). The only rejection I received since that time was a title problem and unrelated to grammar or spelling.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but you get the picture. Probably best to take the week off right now and brush up on your skills. It will do you good in the long run. Best of luck.

Nothing will be 100% accurate, but Cosmo is right. Don't send your work anywhere unless it's to a publisher for submission.

I have a last line of defense if I just can't remember how a word is spelled. Look online for a program called ieSpell. It's a browser add on, and it's caught some things I've missed after proofreading my work countless times.

As for grammar... I'd suggest finding the online versions of the many "style guides" floating around.

Wow, thanks, that's a lot of help! I will definitely try out the computer voice trick and do some studying. It's been a while since I've taken any English courses, so it's probably a good idea to freshen up. I'll also look at some style guides online. I know I have a copy of Elements of Style somewhere, I just have to find it.

Thanks!