On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Teo Zenios wrote:
> As time goes on and I type 95% of my correspondence instead of writing it to
> paper with pen I find my handwriting has grown worse then in my school days
> and I rely more on a spellchecker then proofreading. If I did writing for a
> living, or better yet proofread technical writing on a daily basis my skills
> probably would not have grown worse with time.
I write exclusively on my computer and my writing has stayed the same
(i.e. nigh impeccable!)
> Twenty years from now I would be embarrassed to read something I posted
> earlier that was technically incorrect and wouldn't worry too much about an
> obvious spelling mistake. I don't think topics posted on this mailinglist
> are going to be published, but people will be googling through it to get
> technical information.
Your messages ARE being published. It's called the WORLD WIDE WEB. What
you write online stays around forever these days.
> Judging from your reply if I would have written a book outlining the real
> origins of the universe you would quit reading it after you found the 3rd
> spelling or grammar mistake?
I would. It doesn't bode well for the quality of the rest of the work
and doesn't give me a good impression of the author. It could mean that
the work was so bad that no reputable publisher would take it on, and so
instead it was either self-published, and was not proofread, therefore
further losing credibility, or the proofreader of the low budget
publisher wasn't very good, which would further impugn the work. So,
theoretically, I could pass over one of the most important scientific
treatises of the century, but based on past experience reading poorly
written works, I would doubt it.
> Granted if I did print such a book I would have
> it proofread by experts in English grammar, but I feel that the knowledge
> your trying to convey is more important then the few easy to spot errors in
> grammar. In a perfect world everybody would have the same skills in
> everything, but that's not the way things are. I will take correct content
> over correct grammar anyday.
But how can you determine if the content is good if you can't decipher the
text because the grammer is so poor?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Mon Feb 02 2004 - 17:58:06 GMT