The level of attention an author gives to the small details can make or break an article and can impact upon the author's reputation. A seemingly insignificant oversight can cause instant loss of an author's credibility. The following is an example of how one incidence of carelessness can affect a reader's opinion of an author.

I was reading an article which had been submitted for inclusion in my Article Directory. It was well-written: the author obviously understood his subject, the standard of English was good and there were no spelling errors or typos.

Then my opinion of the author was deflated because I came upon a sentence that went something like this: "??? as somebody (I think it might have been Thoreau) once said".

My immediate reaction to reading that was to think "he couldn't even be bothered to check who said that". The article had been enjoyable until I came upon that quotation but, the fact that the author had not considered it worthwhile checking the source before submitting his article, created the feeling that the whole article had been put together in a slapdash way by somebody who had no respect for his readers. I didn't quite feel outraged but I did feel insulted.

Is that an overreaction? Quite possibly, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who will have that reaction when reading that article. The whole point of the article was to impart certain information. The author chose to include that quotation as part of the article. Therefore, he should, as a matter of courtesy to his readers, have made the effort to verify the source of the quotation before the article was published.

Did the author assume nobody would be particularly interested in the identity of the philosopher he was quoting? Did he think it was acceptable to leave it up to his readers to seek out the information for themselves? Probably neither of these things apply. It is far more likely that he was writing as if he was telling a friend about something, maybe he was quite carried away by enthusiasm, and it simply did not occur to him that anyone would want to be told the source of the quotation or care that he didn't know.

Much of the best writing you will find in ezine articles is by people who write as if they are talking to a friend and I suspect that is what happened here. When we are chatting to friends, we do say things like "somebody once said ? but I can't remember who it was". Nobody gets offended by that lapse of memory. Your friends don't take umbrage and insist you immediately check in a dictionary of quotations. The conversation meanders along its course and, if you never remember where the quotation came from, it won't matter.

It is good to write in a relaxed manner as if you were talking to a friend but, at the same time, you must remember that the written word is fixed on the page. Each sentence you write stands just as it is written, it is not modified by the ebbs and flows of layers of conversation. It is important to be clear in your meaning and as careful as possible in your attention to small details.