(no subject)
today is friday. which means that it's almost the weekend (i'm going to see urinetown at mit tonight, carousel and home tomorrow, back to wellesley/andrew sunday!!!)
but what i really wanted to say was:
warning: i'm about to sound potentially pretentious. so if you think you're going to get offended, then i would consider not reading the below entry.
so it amazes me how deficient some people are in basic writing skills. i do not consider myself an accomplished writer at all-- i've never been published in an official book or anything, i've never had someone seriously critique my work (other than teachers and such), and i thus (arguably) have virtually no platform to stand on as a silly undergrad who loves the written word and who's been thrust into the world of editing with a somewhat limited background (actually, to be fair, i've done a good variety of writing-- newspaper, litmag, various classes, advertising, training programs, etc etc etc)
but!
i'm still fairly awe-struck how people out there-- smart people who are grad students and professors, in noteworthy schools and professions-- are surprisingly deficient in using basic rules of good, comprehensive, deliberate, and efficient writing!
what spurs this on, you ask? well, my background as a grammar/syntax/word snob to a certain extent as well as the copious amount of editing i've been doing recently for prof. lackey and cultural agents.
and i'm not saying that these people can't write-- on the contrary, the content is quite good and they've put a ton of effort into their pieces, but i guess i'm just... surprised. and i guess i feel more ok abut what i'm doing-- i was thinking that correcting people's stupid mistakes was rather worthless, but i'd be kind of appalled if some of this stuff got published the way it is now. so i guess my job is rewarding in that sense-- because i'm fixing their punctuation, spelling, syntax, unclear sentences, run-ons, misuses of commas, etc. their writing will look better and be a bit more comprehensible.
also, in case you think i'm being a total hypocrite, there definitely is a difference between the writing that i do here on lj and my emails and such versus the writing that i would be doing if i were to be publishing, say, a book. so that's, essentially, how i can rationalize writing imperfectly here and complaining about stupid mistakes in things that will actually be published. because when i write for an academic setting, and if i were to be published, i'd sure as hell be more cogniscant of and consistant with rules of good writing.
but i certainly don't want to do this for the rest of my life... there's only so many times i can see a sentence without commas, or a sentence that begins with "but", or a vague pronoun reference before i'll throw myself out the window.
on a related note, do i need a break from academic life already??? i hope not.
but what i really wanted to say was:
warning: i'm about to sound potentially pretentious. so if you think you're going to get offended, then i would consider not reading the below entry.
so it amazes me how deficient some people are in basic writing skills. i do not consider myself an accomplished writer at all-- i've never been published in an official book or anything, i've never had someone seriously critique my work (other than teachers and such), and i thus (arguably) have virtually no platform to stand on as a silly undergrad who loves the written word and who's been thrust into the world of editing with a somewhat limited background (actually, to be fair, i've done a good variety of writing-- newspaper, litmag, various classes, advertising, training programs, etc etc etc)
but!
i'm still fairly awe-struck how people out there-- smart people who are grad students and professors, in noteworthy schools and professions-- are surprisingly deficient in using basic rules of good, comprehensive, deliberate, and efficient writing!
what spurs this on, you ask? well, my background as a grammar/syntax/word snob to a certain extent as well as the copious amount of editing i've been doing recently for prof. lackey and cultural agents.
and i'm not saying that these people can't write-- on the contrary, the content is quite good and they've put a ton of effort into their pieces, but i guess i'm just... surprised. and i guess i feel more ok abut what i'm doing-- i was thinking that correcting people's stupid mistakes was rather worthless, but i'd be kind of appalled if some of this stuff got published the way it is now. so i guess my job is rewarding in that sense-- because i'm fixing their punctuation, spelling, syntax, unclear sentences, run-ons, misuses of commas, etc. their writing will look better and be a bit more comprehensible.
also, in case you think i'm being a total hypocrite, there definitely is a difference between the writing that i do here on lj and my emails and such versus the writing that i would be doing if i were to be publishing, say, a book. so that's, essentially, how i can rationalize writing imperfectly here and complaining about stupid mistakes in things that will actually be published. because when i write for an academic setting, and if i were to be published, i'd sure as hell be more cogniscant of and consistant with rules of good writing.
but i certainly don't want to do this for the rest of my life... there's only so many times i can see a sentence without commas, or a sentence that begins with "but", or a vague pronoun reference before i'll throw myself out the window.
on a related note, do i need a break from academic life already??? i hope not.