Q: I found your site recently, and I want to say that it's been quite helpful as I am figuring out how to enter this field (I just graduated in May), so thanks for doing all this.
Anyway, I'm wondering about typos in cover letters for reporting jobs. Of course they should never happen, but when they do, and you notice it shortly after sending it, what is the best course of action? Should one admit the error and/or claim the version was unfinished (especially when sending via email?), or say nothing at all? How do editors tend to view these? As a college editor, I became much more sympathetic to typos once I realized how some of them are just impossible to spot!
Thanks
Eliot
A: As someone who occasionally goes too fast and makes mistakes, I feel your pain.
Having been an editor, though, you know how scary it is to have staffers like me!
I am seeing a lot more mistakes in e-mails than in letters on paper. Ideally, the standards should be high for both, but reality and the ideal seldom coincide. Do not compound your error by fibbing that the letter was sent before it was finished. Mistakes are bad. Lying is worse. Own up in a letter-perfect way and adopt the new standard for important communiqués. Admit your mistake with a little -- just a little -- humor and promise to be more careful.
People like you and me would be better off to be careful and to buddy up with someone so we could have editors on every important thing we write. Get yourself an editor. The Internet makes it possible to have a long-distance editing buddy.
