Speak to Me
When writing a document, paper, or a novel, the next step is to proof read it. I find errors in things I proofread and then published. Heck, when I read published novels I even find errors. No matter how many times I read something over, I seem to always miss something. I wrote it and my brain knows what I meant to say, so as I read it over, I miss some of the mistakes. A method that has been working for me is to read it out loud to my wife. As I do, mistakes I missed the first time pop out at me and I fix them as I read.

There is another way. Let the computer do the reading and you listen. A feature in Microsoft Word 2003 allows the computer to read any text selected in the document out loud. The voice is a little robotic, but very understandable. Simply select the text (Ctrl+A to select all) and then press Win+S (Win is the Windows key on the keyboard--usually a flag to the left of the spacebar).