Two Awesome Ways to Ensure Accuracy

The title doesn’t say a lot about what is about to be discussed, but it can all be broken down into one main subject: accuracy on your blog.  While it is a given that your blog should be accurate, how can you properly execute the steps everyday to ensure that everything on your blog is accurate, especially on subjects that you aren’t familiar with?

Throughout the years, news has been reported, often adapted from primary sources, along with additional knowledge from the writer about the subject.  In addition, there were likely other sources of insight into the subject/news article being written about.  Many things have changed since news was first published in newspapers, on television, and into the present with the Internet – news can be found in any of these mediums.

However, the people writing the news are similar, in more ways than one.  For one, each has a definite passion about writing, stemming from the fact that they want to share work with their readers — bloggers today and the newspaper writers of the past (and present).  Secondly, robots or some other form of life — one that is able to interpret thoughts and make no mistakes whatsoever, doesn’t yet exist, meaning that each of these groups of people can’t exist without the editors, writers, and other practices that the author/publisher puts into each piece of work.

Accuracy Starts at the Source

A majority of the content distributed today is simply rewordings of writing that has been previously published, whether online or offline, that can then be sourced to current events – meaning that the original articles must be attributed to.

There is only one simple way to ensure accuracy when sharing your thoughts on an issue: make sure you know exactly what you want to get across to your readers.  Without this, you won’t be able to source and/or excerpt the right content, and your copy will appear choppy, pieced together simply to publish the post, and not inform, educate, or persuade readers – the three main goals that bloggers appear to be looking for from their blog.

Think about it this way – if you don’t understand a particular topic, then move onto another one and entirely avoid it.  It can be said that you’ll become a better writer venturing away from your comfort zone, but in this case, the results will be adversely affected as a result of any inexperience you may have.

When you need to cite other websites and sources, make sure that you link to the article, then split your browser to make sure that any facts you quote/use in your post are accurate, and current – you don’t want to use information that was valid ten years ago, as it won’t provide any relevant information to your readers.

While this post wasn’t meant to provide methods for citing sources, you need to be able to provide a reference to any facts that aren’t implied as those that you know, or anyone should know for that matter.

You need to be able to prove to your readers that you can be a reliable source, so if you are unable to look at one source, then use that information and transfer those figures and relate them to your views, then your readers won’t respect you as a blogger/journalist/etc.

Don’t Do Something You’ll Regret

At this point as someone who blogs, many of the foundations for what is and is not acceptable on your blog, in the sense that a few mistakes here and there are generally recognized as acceptable.  

There are several methods to ensure that your posts are up-to-date and relevant for the people who visit your blog.

• Be sure that any sources you cite were published as recently as possible, unless the facts have not changed.  As a general note, do not choose articles that were published when “things were different,” or your blog will appear as out-of-date as the article itself.
• Don’t let the link back to other blogs be put on the back burner.  If it is not provided and a large number of figures are provided, you will appear as though you are an “insider” of the service and are an employee/writer there – not something you want to be if the service isn’t liked.
• Your views can be taken as criticism of other people, if you simply take the intended article and flip the opinion of it.  As implied evidence, you can offend people, making them react further to your opinion, defaming you for something you never intended to do.
• Again, don’t publish posts without, at the very least, double checking facts that have been ported over to your blog.  Even the most minor of mistakes can merit the biggest mistake in your blogging career.
• Facts that you generate yourself, including advertising rates, etc. must be kept accurate, or you’ll be overcharging/undercharging your advertisers.