If you're looking to get a new job, set up a deal for a company, or trying to pass a college course, one of the most likely areas for you to trip up without realizing it is in your spelling. Spelling is becoming a lost art these days with the invention of spell check, a utility included with most email providers and word processing programs that checks your spelling for you. However, spell check will not catch all your mistakes. Here are a few things you need to look out for.

Similar Words

Spell check is not psychic. If you have used the wrong form of a word, for example: bear instead of bare, their instead of they're, or soul instead of sole, your spell checking program will not catch these mistakes, as they are not technically misspelled. Also, if you are trying to refer to kitchen knives as sharp and you forget to type the 's', spell check will assume you meant 'harp' and will not correct or alert you to your mistake. For this reason, read carefully over your documents.

Unfamiliar Words

If your company is relying on your report and your document has a lot of technical terms in it, spell check will not know the correct spelling of these words and will therefore mark them as incorrect but fail to include suggestions for the correct spelling. If you type technical terms a lot, you are advised to carefully enter the correct spelling of each form of the word (i.e. with all its different prefixes and suffixes) into your word processor's dictionary before you write your letter.

Proper Names

The problem with proper name is similar to the one with unfamiliar words in that spell check does not know them and will mark them as misspelled. Some very common names, such as Peter or Jennifer, may be recognized by the program, but uncommon names like Diego or Lisbeth, your program may not recognize their names. You may add them to the dictionary, but be careful of adding unique spellings of common proper names (for example Kristyn or Jayke), as this will keep spell check from noticing if you have spelled the regular version of those names wrong.

Incorrect Autocorrect

If you have allowed spell check to automatically correct your spelling mistakes as you type, always be careful to read over your document before you send it. A few typos in 'mobile tracking' might lead spell check to assume you meant to say 'hospital ducking' and correct you accordingly. This also commonly occurs with unfamiliar words and proper names. Quesadillas might be corrected to 'queasiness' and 'Connor' corrected to 'corner.'