Proofreading and DNA

 A crazy idea looming.  This post is my reminder.  Will put it together this afternoon if I don't get hit by a meteor.

Later:  I'm alive and alert, so here goes.  A couple of days ago I posted four items on the same day.  I was motivated in part by my self-inflicted goal of maintaining a post per day for the year 2013.  To my horror, the next morning I discovered multiple errors.  A friend and I were reading the posts together when these errors became apparent.  First impulse was to think "spelling errors."  But, I am an excellent speller, so that didn't make sense.  "Keyboarding errors."  Aha!  Look for patterns. You can see the patterns in the above photo.  Each so-called misspelling has a letter missing.  I was going too fast and not maintaining an even pressure on the keys.  In the olden days when we used manual typewriters, one had to strike the keys fairly aggressively in order to get those long levers to strike hard enough to make an impression.  With no headphones or other distractions, the typist usually knew instantly if an error was made.  That is, an error of physical force, not a spelling error.  The latter could remain undetected.  So, as proofreader of my own material, I found a pattern, made the corrections, and vowed to slow down, or at least proofread carefully before posting.  As a former magazine editor, another sort of impulse struck when I posted the above photo.  The "layout" needed to be more pleasing, so here's a slightly more attractive view of my findings below.

This whole affair reminded me of something I've learned about genes in recent years.  Quite a few of our genes are primarily concerned with detecting and correcting the fairly constant errors that occur in the lives of our cells.  If we didn't have self-correcting mechanisms in our genetic makeup, we'd all have cancer or worse.  If a literary person had made this discovery, they'd probably be called "proofreader genes." 
Since neither of the above two photos is an aesthetic delight, I've decided to close this post with two photos I took on my way back from my "mushroom neighbors" walk (previous post).  This is snowberry and it is producing an abundance of berries in the neighborhood. 

So, hopefully I haven't made new errors in this post.  I'm enjoying thinking about proofreading, editing, and revising issues since they are a constant topic in my English 10 class at FRC.  I want my students to see that this is a process, often enhanced by collaboration, and that to get good results in their writing, it won't always be a solo trip.  They may be poor spellers, but can still have great ideas.  It's the willingness to collaborate and/or do multiple dedicated re-readings and revisions until their writing reaches its full potential.  I've saved the error-ridden posts and will probably print them and ask my students to proofread.