<soapbox> Decent Writing Does Matter!

I've been wielding the red pixel in a few posts over the past few weeks partly for entertainment, but also because some of the posts are crazy-frustrating to make sense of.

This post is a case in point. The OP is obviously very concerned about her issues and wants the Lindens to consider them. However, there were a couple of spots where I wasn't sure of her meaning and I get paid well to do this for a living in RL. And that doesn't address that the post is much longer than most people will read.

I have a difficult time grasping that there are adults who don't understand how profoundly poor writing skills impact their ability to get their point across. With the proliferation of e-mail, web forums, and other forms of text-based communication, how can anyone survive without the ability to write a simple sentence.

I am not a stickler for exact spelling or every comma where it belongs. I throw the random comma here and there myself. But I do wish everyone grasped that if no one understands what you are trying to say, then the time spent typing was wasted.

How many good concepts get ignored because of poor writing and no Enter key?
</soapbox>

I don't understand you. What are you trying to say Surreal??? Spit it out girl. hehe

I tend to agree. If you're advocating a point, it's in your best interest to write as clearly as possible. If your post isn't that serious, then proper grammar and whatnot is less important.

I realize that English isn’t everyone’s first language. So, there’s a lot that doesn’t bother me in the way of spelling, grammar, using the correct word, etc… But, there are certain things for which there is no excuse. For me, the big ones are:

Capitalization – It’s not that hard to turn off the Caps Lock key and capitalize the first letter of the sentence (and proper names and so forth).
Punctuation – It’s not that hard to put a period or whatever at the end of a sentence.
Paragraphs – It’s not that hard to hit the Enter key enough times to put a blank line between paragraphs.

Anyone who knows how to write English should know to do this. No excuses even if your first language is a hieroglyphic one and especially if your first language also has these concepts. For example French, which has similar capitalization, punctuation, and paragraph rules.

I’m not a stickler. I know I don’t spell every word correctly, always user proper grammar, or even to do all of the above all the time. Mistakes happen. That’s no big deal. It’s the people who write out a long post, in all lower case, with no punctuation or paragraphs that I don’t understand. I think they are completely wasting their time.

The post you cited doesn’t seem that bad to me. Sure there are grammar mistakes, but at least it's readable.

HP

Oh, Surreal. I think I'm in love. We share the same pet peeve.

Would you be interested in a job at the M2?

P2

I have to admit that writing as dialoque is not my strength. I could carefully construct my thoughts, but I would end up sounding very stilted. It usually takes me several rereads and edits to write anything really well.

For forums, I doubt I would bother very often. It would have to be an issue that was extremely important to me.

There are some posts that make my eyes bleed. I'll be the first to admit that I often don't take the time to ensure that my posts are grammatically sound. I usually am in a hurry, which my case leads to fragments or run on sentences. Even better I often find when I re-read things that I forget to finish a thought and leave off with no conclusion. I am still able to get my point across around those bad grammatical habits.

Spell check people, spell check.

I can understand sentence structure not being perfect but some of the horrid posts with numerous mangled spellings are ridiculous. Now a word or two misspelled by accident is fine but if you know you have no idea how to spell, then spell check the damn thing before posting.

you really have no idea how much you do not want me to tell you where you can stick this thread, your grammar, and most especially your f**king spell checker

have a nice day

Oh if only everyone had your charm and posting skills.

Don't stop there; expand on that thought so everyone can see what kind of person you are. Actually, on second thought, no need for that. Your original post will suffice.

Oh, almost forgot. You have a nice day too there Jake.

I applaud your courage for initiating the topic, Surreal.

I support the belief that a lot of well meaning, intelligent ideas and commentary get lost in the cloud of static formed by poor writing skills. In fact, I think it happens with increasing regularity.

As I read forum posts, one cannot help but evaluate the intelligence of the individual who repeatedly violates about every 4th grade writing skill taught. The only assumption I can form is that they don't care enough to write properly... so why should I bother to hear them out?

My hope is those who want to be heard and understood will read your thought and care enough to improve - for their own sake.


---

And now, a translation:

Kewl! ^_^ Dittos gf wen i red stuf it is bad2 lol! U sez me ned skilz 2 rite? OMG 2funni. latrz

The truth is that no one likes to be told that their writing sucks. I know my writing sucks and I still don't like to have people it to me.

The problem is that the ability to communicate effectively is important. I studied engineering because I hated any class where I had to write an essay. I now spend about 80% of my time writing research proposals and reports. (Well, maybe not 80%, but it feels like it!) In my work funding usually goes to the person who can best communicate their idea to the people who make the funding decisions. (Provided you are at least moderately technically competent).

This puts me in a wierd position. I still hate writing; my spelling has always been bad** and I focus too much on details and often fail to convey the broad concepts. However, I spend so much time writing and editing that it really makes me cringe to read some writing. It doesn't really bother me on the forums too much, since I see this as an informal place. What really irks me is when I see it in places like newspapers and magazines, especially in news stories.

I suppose the point of my babbling is: Yes, the grammar/spelling/writing nazis are really annoying and its okay to be angry at them, but their message is important to heed, especially if you are trying to convey complex ideas.


**(Yes spell checkers help, but I don't see a spell checker on this forum, and I'm not going to take the extra steps to pull the whole thing into a word processor and back just to make others feel better.)

I would care to make a couple of points here.
English is not the first language of every poster on these forums, and there are disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD which can totally change the way one presents the written word.
At the end of the day, these are just forums.
Noone here gets paid for their writing, noone is sitting an exam, and as long as what they write still gets their point across, I don't care how its presented.

as for capital letters, ee cummings didnt use them, and it didn't make their use of language any the poorer. that ee cummings was a damn good poet.

For what it's worth, I think your writing is fine. Also, you got my main point, which encourages me that I wrote decently. I'm much more frustrated by having to dig out the central concept of a post with a backhoe than I am by a dangling participle (and doesn't that sound dirty).

All the situations you just named don't negate my central point. If you don't write effectively, then your reader is unlikely to be informed or persuaded. Anyone can improve their ability to write and construct a logical argument.

Heh.. I love ee cummings.

Rants are fine, just please be sure not to personally attack one another in the process.

I'm just speaking for myself Surreal. Its not something that bothers me.
However, the intentional mispelling of something such as leetspeak does annoy me.
But thats an entirely different matter.

well my pet peeve is overly pedantic grammerians preaching about how i should spell and how it all gives insight into who we are

i also have a peeve about overly judgemental people who think that they are some how blessed with the wisdom of god to deduce everything they now about a person from two lines of post

i'll take the misspelled, non grammtical over the condescending

if you want people to spell better, fix the education system-don't get up on some high horse and belittle people because they cannot spell, or use correct grammar

its a forum


(I was supposed to be charming? Damn. I though I was supposed to be clear.)

have a nice day

I suppose this proves how writing AND reading skills are important. From what I gather, the initial post was commenting how people put their ideas across. Not grammar. You can have, for example, someone who has perfect grammar, punctuation and spelling, but has garbled content. And some who suffer from both poor grammar and scatterbrained content. And even worse, poor grammar and no content.

None of us are blessed from birth with language skills like these. Its all learnt and if your own abilities suck, it has much more to do with you than the education system, your parents or your government. It shows a lack of effort on your part to even bother, and that is why people will judge you. Some of the greatest english writers had little or no formal education.

Good writing does help indeed, we could have some more forum tools like spellchecking, that would help a lot specially people having hard time with english language.

I R 2 1337 4 J00.. Oh.

This isn't the internet speak thread?

Thank you for continuing to emphasize my point. In a text-based medium all you can know about the person is how and what they write. If you can't convey your intelligence or argument then people are very likely to dismiss you as a moron or inconsequential. People are always judged on how they present themselves - here's it's language.

You object to what you see as me taking a judgemental and condescending stance, however, you have just done the same thing by assuming that you know what I think about the people who post poorly as opposed to what I said about their writing skills and the effect it has on their message.

I made an effort in my previous post to deflect your hostility with humor, but since you seem determined to be offended, I think I will leave this conversation here.

I so wish they would include a spell check.

I've noticed that in general, those who speak English as a Second Language (or 3rd) seem to have much better skills than average. Certainly better skills than mine would be in their native tongue.

I've found IRL and in forum that non-native english speakers can communicate in english better than some native english speakers.

They can do so even if their grammar is shot, spelling is off, and word use is wrong. That's because they try their best to communicate ... and often succeed. They focus on making their point clear with the minimum of words.

Then there are native English speakers who have perfect spelling and grammar and can't deliver their point at all. They focus on being angry or indignant, failing to realize that their post fails to communicate. Very often these same people are petty and go screaming at the smallest thing without checking facts first.

I am an advocate of writing well and am fortunate to have skill in this particular area. Others are not so fortunate. Threads like this only serve to belittle them. It doesn't help. It doesn't teach. It just makes them feel bad or angry or insecure.