Robbery -- FOUR fatals? F@#k.

We had four people fatal in this exercise, many of whom fataled more than once. Not good. They join a fifth person who fataled on the drowning exercise, by identifying the 10-year-old boy as 11 years old.

Let's go over the goofs.

Three of the fatals revolved around the misspelling of the gunman's last name. It wasn't the common spelling of Weiss, it was Wiess.

First, you should have noticed the different spelling. Second, if you found it odd, you should have double-checked with your sources to see if in fact the name was spelled in an uncommon way.

Really, I was surprised no one asked me about that before turning in your assignments.

One of the fatalers could have caught their fatal before turning in their work, if they had adequately fact-checked their work. That's because they referred to the robber as Wiess and Weiss in the same story! You know both names can't be right.

Same with another fataler who spelled the clerk's last name as Layoux and Layouz in the same story.

The third fataler misidentified the clerk's school as East Lansing Community College, when in fact it was Lansing Community College.

And the fourth fataler offered this quote: "Then he asked me for the money, and I have it to him."

What that writer meant to say was, "gave it to him." But as we've noted many times before, spell check will not catch an incorrect word when it is spelled correctly. Since the word change changes a quote, it is a fatal.

I know when you're on deadline there's this rush to finish. Still, make sure you have adequate time to do a basic fact-check. Some of those who fataled in this assignment finished well ahead of the deadline, and left unused several minutes that could have helped catch their mistakes.

Plus, I'd rather have you write a shorter -- but fact-checked and on-time -- story than a longer one. With these in-class exercises, don't worry about length; worry about getting in the information you need to get in, on time and correct.

For those of you keeping track, we are down to just ONE person in this class who has yet to have a fact fatal this term. Everybody else, welcome to Omar's Fatals Club.