Astahost's Professional Stance Is A Falling Dream Spelling and grammar is a dismal

[Jared 0]

I honestly don't think grammar or commas matter. Even at the slightest. Some language arts teachers are really strict about this nowadays. Most of them believe that if all the commas aren't in the right place, it means that your paper isn't very good. They don't care about voice, humor, or how moving it is. If you just add some long, flowery words, or if you're spelling is good, they'll think it's a good paper. That annoys me.

I couldn't agree more! I understand that they want a level of professionalism on these boards. I wouldn't try to start a revolution against that. But I know exactly what you mean when you say that language is deeper than the syntax and grammar that we use. A perfect example is Neil Armstrong's extremely inspirational quote:

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

In fact, that quote makes use of extremely bad grammar! "To boldly go" is a split infinitive, so instead it should be "To go boldly." And the sentence also ends with the preposition "before," which is not allowed according to the grammar police. So in fact, the whole quote should be:

To go boldly where before no man has gone.

Not quite the same ring, eh?

I know this example is taking things a little extreme, but it does bother me when you write an essay and they circle a preposition at the end of a sentence and take ten percent away from you when Neil Armstrong's moving quote has that exact same format.

IMHO, anyway.

- Jared

[Arbitrary 0]

I couldn't agree more! I understand that they want a level of professionalism on these boards. I wouldn't try to start a revolution against that. But I know exactly what you mean when you say that language is deeper than the syntax and grammar that we use. A perfect example is Neil Armstrong's extremely inspirational quote:

Yes, language is deeper than just syntax or grammar, but professionalism is still related to syntax and grammar. If you were writing a free verse poem, I'm sure you could get away with poor grammar and still have a brilliant poem, but in other fields, this isn't how things work. We're not really poets here, we're sharing information about technology. If I had a company and I hired someone who couldn't type without grammar errors, we wouldn't be making a good impression on our clients. I'm sure Xisto has reasons as to why they need people who can express themselves coherently.
I think the point is that we're not trying to correct small, often-made mistakes like split infinitives, because they don't really interfere with conveying the overall meaning. However, I have seen posts whose grammar is so horrendous that the meaning behind those posts is difficult to discern. Those are the posts I'd be concerned about, because they're the ones who really reflect a sense of unprofessionalism. Obviously, while you could argue that chatspeak is, to an extent, comprehensible, it is still very annoying and should be avoided. It's better to make posts easier to read than harder to read, right? That's what this "professionalism" is for, not for nitpicking grammar nazis.

*I honestly don't think grammar or commas matter. Even at the slightest. Some language arts teachers are really strict about this nowadays. Most of them believe that if all the commas aren't in the right place, it means that your paper isn't very good. They don't care about voice, humor, or how moving it is. If you just add some long, flowery words, or if you're spelling is good, they'll think it's a good paper. That annoys me.

Perhaps, but a lot of times the location of the commas can determine your style and voice. I've seen essays written that don't use commas correctly, and it's obvious that there's something awkward about their style. Sometimes poor grammar goes far enough to interfere with the actual gist or tone of the text, and that is really the most important point.

[jjkeenan 0]

Um um... I don't know what to say. I belong to those people with bad grammar. Except for spelling. I am using Firefox and I have this red line when I write down wrong spelling. Now, next time, I'll just be brief to what I am writing down. This time, I have no excuse. Been a admin in my forums before, Its not that strict since almost everything is allowed from foul words and all. I love this peaceful place.

[growfinancially 0]

Twitch,

 

I certainly appreciated reading your post. I agree that there are many errors and typos written into content you might find here or anywhere else for that matter. I also agree that there are things that writers, novice or expert, could do to better their finished product.

 

The way I personally see it is that there are some writings out there that are glaring messes on the surface. You can't help but to feel a certain twinge in your seat from having to read these posts, articles, etc. But doesn't content outweigh these writing problems? I might be inclined to think that it does. I would much rather read an article chocked full of useful information and poorly written than one that is eloquently written but almost completely void of any real information. Now, I don't mean that I am willing to keep reading something that is a complete dread to read. This is something that I don't really believe I can explain in greater detail than to leave it at being a subjective view on an article.

 

As far as writing rules go, I do believe that we need rules to communicate, or we could end up in a state of complete communication disarray. We we all just be talking in randomness, but I think that this would then become a language upon itself. The rules, I believe, are in place to make communication effective, but I also believe that these rules are designed to keep the language from changing. Any language that doesn't have rules will still become a communicable over time as order will eventually come out of chaos. Here is a subject that could be stretched somehow into infinity, but I promise I won't do that here.

 

Anyway, all that I am saying is that when evaluating writing, we probably shouldn't spend much time trying to determine if it is the best (or close) writing we've ever read. I think we should "fight through it" if it's a writing we are going to get something greater out of than the pain of reading it. Now, if you have options, it stands to reason that a person would want to get the information from a more-pleasantly readable source.

 

I hope that someone in some part of the world gets something out of this in all their future readings. Good luck and good day.

 

Growfinancially

 

 

 

<span style='color:red'>Please do not take this topic as offensive, rather a pointer in the direction that will help you, the members of this forum and guests.</span>

 

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Introduction:</span>

Xisto, as you may well know, is based on a more professional and formal tone than sister site Xisto. This professionalism should be shown through in-depth information, developed with highly accurate grammar and spelling. However, through looking at recent topics and posts from new contributors and existing ones, it would appear that this professionalism is being delimited, in ways that is having negative effects on the site as a whole.

 

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Grammar, the Founding Stone of Good Communication.</span>

In order to make sense of a language, you need rules. For programmers, and those with good general knowledge, these rules are known as syntax. If you put your words in the wrong order, or don’t apply the right connectives, then the whole meaning of your sentence can change unexpectedly, or ultimately mean nothing. In the likelihood it results in meaning nothing, your topic/post will be deleted, as something that means nothing is also known as useless, and therefore results in spam.

 

Additionally to your words having to gell together to make an understandable sentence, you also need to use COMMAS. I have seen many members in many forums, not using commas. They don’t mean, take a breath, but their nature of splitting sentences into usable segments is what gives the ‘breath-take’ effect. If you are unsure on how to use commas, then use Google to find articles. There should be hundreds, especially on Exam Revision sites.

The above is an example of someone that doesn’t use commas, or when they do, it is sparingly. Using commas helps people to understand better the context behind the words. Even if a sentence doesn’t make any sense really, the use of commas in the right places helps to get a slightly better hand on of what the author is conveying.

 

So please, when making a topic/post. Firstly check if you have it capitalised and also you have used the appropriate punctuation where it is needed.

 

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Spelling Matters.</span>

Without good spelling practice, it eventually affects other aspects of your life. Especially if you are in Education, as it eventually spills onto your work. I for one noticed this problem, as I often write words like ‘they’ without the ‘y’ on the end. This, I believe is because of the use of deprecating my words when chatting to others, and not being bothered about it, as they ‘can figure it out’. Unfortunately, this liberty should not be extended to other areas online, like main documents within sites and also in discussion boards. It is appalling to see members typing in short-hand. Whilst it may be faster and more natural to write that way, one man’s l33t is another man’s mess. For me, to see things like “Hw r u?” anywhere near a discussion board is demeaning to the owners and the respectable members.

 

You should take your time when making a new topic/post to make sure that your spelling is accurate, or else you will find that many members start getting annoyed.

I understand that no-one is perfect, and obviously you can’t check your accuracy all of the time. But, if you take just a few seconds to proof-read your topic/post before sending it, then you will reduce confusion and annoyance.

[Animator 0]

When I write a page of tutorial, it can take days. Literally. Just to get ten points, I might have to write a tutorial which takes many hours over a few days, along with the illustrations etc in order to complete the task.When I read through what I've written, I see errors. Many errors. In particular, is this thing called "double barreling" where I some times say the same thing twice... other times I use the same or similar words a few times withing a sentence or two... so the word gets repeated over and over. It sounds funny. It's off. The flow of what I'm trying to say is broken. It gets hard to understand. It's just "wrong".Sometimes I go over what I have written and try to fix these errors (normally I do this at least once, but sometimes I go over what I have written several times). It's hard work for me. I try to stop my self from getting up and wandering around the room when my head hurts, because if I do that it's easy to lose my train of thought. Often, on trying to fix the mistakes, my mind goes into a rut, and I fill my work with a whole lot more mistakes.Imagine how I feel when some self righteous prick comes in and pokes fun at the way my effort reads, rather than respond thoughtfully about what I have said.I'm not stupid. I have an extremely high IQ (that's why I chose Xisto over Trap). Apparently, the cause of my writing problems is affected by my thinking a lot faster than I can write. It's like trying to run with your shoelaces tied.I wish I was like one of you who just gets their words right the first time, and doesn't have to check again and again and still get it all wrong.So sue me. I have dyslexic tenancies.

[khalilov 0]

Some members may not be from Briton or the US so not every one knows english well, and others might be typing too fast or don't believe it is necessary to recheck what they write. Good spelling and the use of commas or points may make the post more professional, but i think Xisto members care more about the content which in many cases is plain coding.

[evought 0]

... snip ...
I wish I was like one of you who just gets their words right the first time, and doesn't have to check again and again and still get it all wrong.

So sue me. I have dyslexic tenancies.

I am one of those authors people think words come easy for, but I go through the same process of revision that you do. I have a paper I wrote a bit ago that ended up at 31 drafts for about four pages. And yes, sometimes even the final draft has mistakes, but one of the useful tricks is just to have someone else read it over before you submit. After you have been staring at the same text for a few hours, you cannot see the mistakes anymore, no matter how good you are with spelling, grammar, or style. Someone else looking at it often sees those mistakes right away just because their mind is fresh. When writing a tutorial in particular, it is critical to make sure someone other than you can understand the directions. That is the whole point, isn't it? So, ask your spouse, girl or boyfriend, roommate, or alien overlord to look over your shoulder or email it to someone for comment before submitting a major work.

With tutorials, another test is to let it sit until the next time you have to do the same task. Then take it out and follow it exactly as you wrote it. Does it still make sense to you? Your mind may be fresh enough at this point that the mistakes will jump out at you.

Another often overlooked thing is that you can also edit *after* you submit. Xisto lets you edit your own posts, so, after you have rewritten the piece twelve times and it still has one last typo, you *can* still correct it. Quite a few sites have this feature now. Just don't try to use it to game the point system or I think Opaque might get a bit testy.

Anyway, I don't think we should shoot people who have typos in their posts or occasional bad grammarâ no one is perfect. But good writing is something worth striving for and continually improving.
Edited October 18, 2008 by evought (see edit history)

[Atomic0 0]

When I am typing a post, I have the English (Australian) dictionary installed as an extension in Firefox which checks my spelling as I type. Generally, I don't have to correct anything, although I may occasionally mistype or misspell some words. Typing fast tends to cause more errors in my typing, so I like typing a steady pace that is not too fast or too slow.In terms of posts made on Xisto, I feel that it is better than posts in other forums, where posts are less professional in their layout and structure, and have more of the internet slang words used regularly throughout posts.

[darasen 0]

No one here, that I am aware of, is striving to be a punctuation nazi. That said the idea that punctuation does not matter is simply ludicrous. For example I recently read something that described a weapon as having a "sharp curved blade" this would not be the same as a "sharp, curved blade" so was the blade sharp with a curve to it or did the blade curve sharply? It is hard to tell the authors intention with the comma. The sentence was a pain given that it was, intentionally, a complete run on as well. The biggest thing, however, is simple syntax. There have been many post I have read, or tried to read, that contained no punctuation or paragraph breaks. the worst is simply lazy typing. When someone uses "ur" or "u" or the like for real words that person can not expect to be taken seriously. Noy being a native speaker of a language is not an excuse for not typing out words. Interestingly, those who are not native speakers of a language tend to use more formal grammar.

[tansqrx 0]

When I am reading a post, punctuation does make reading a more enjoyable experience.Astahost does have several non-English members and I am more than happy to overlook misspelling and punctuation errors as long as the writer is well intentioned. The reverse of that is that some of the top posters here are not from a natively English speaking country and they have better grammar than most Americans. Punctuation and grammar are usually the first clue to me that a writer is not well educated or is just plain full of you know what.For our non-English members here are a few dirty little secrets of commas.1. In many cases the use of commas are subjective and may or may not be used and still be grammatically correct. The best example is in the use of lists. “One, two, and three” and “One, two and three” are both correct. 2. Use a comma when there is a pause.3. Be consistent in your comma usage.I learned the most about grammar not in elementary or high school but in my British Literature class during my second year of college. One of the required books was a writing handbook called “Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers.” When grading a paper the teacher would only put the handbook section number by the mistake (i.e. 21C) and nothing else. By the end of the class I had most of that book memorized almost as well as she did because she would routinely quote section numbers and rules from memory. During one of the classes an argument broke out over grammar (this was a class of engineering students that enjoyed debating with the teacher, myself included). She told us that some of the grammar rules that we learned previously were nothing less than a lie. One of these included the optional commas. Even though some teachers will swear up and down and mark off for certain comma mistakes, there are instances where commas can go either way and as long as you can argue your point you can use them as you please as long as you are consistent.As with many of the hardest teachers you have ever had, I always remember her and never forgot what she taught. I even think of “some” of the memories as fond. I still remember the biggest WTF grammar moment of my life when I got a paper back. There was only a “9h improper use of a gerund.” I never knew what a gerund was but I do now. I still have that writing handbook and I have it beside me as I am writing this.

[Running With Scissors1405241561 0]

In terms of posts made on Xisto, I feel that it is better than posts in other forums, where posts are less professional in their layout and structure, and have more of the internet slang words used regularly throughout posts.

I have been on website where there forums have such bad spellers you can't understand a word they're saying. Well it's not all spelling but they use so much internet slang I can't keep up. Stuff like "lol" and "ftw" are fine but some people take it to a whole new level and I just don't understand it nor will I sit there and try to decode it. Xisto seems to be good with this though.

The biggest thing, however, is simple syntax. There have been many post I have read, or tried to read, that contained no punctuation or paragraph breaks. the worst is simply lazy typing. When someone uses "ur" or "u" or the like for real words that person can not expect to be taken seriously. Noy being a native speaker of a language is not an excuse for not typing out words. Interestingly, those who are not native speakers of a language tend to use more formal grammar.

I know what you mean. Like I said to Atomic0 above this quote internet slang along you people who need to take already short words and make them shorter just make the forums seem less professional and I find it just plain annoying.

When I am reading a post, punctuation does make reading a more enjoyable experience.

I agree puctuation makes reading much easier which also makes it more enjoyable. The only thing I have to say about commas is that in my opinion if it makes sence without commas leave it that way. I don't use commas often unless the sentence really needs some to make it convey the message more clearly.

[Atomic0 0]

Maybe having an integrated spelling and grammar checker in the reply box of the Xisto forum would improve the quality of the language and make the posts look more professional, although I don't think anyway has invented an online spelling and grammar checker yet.

[Running With Scissors1405241561 0]

Maybe having an integrated spelling and grammar checker in the reply box of the Xisto forum would improve the quality of the language and make the posts look more professional, although I don't think anyway has invented an online spelling and grammar checker yet.

I have been to forums where they have a spell checker in their reply boxes and I think it does help improve the quality of the language. I don't know if it is possible on a IP board like this one but I have seen it on SMF forums. Maybe there is a IP board mod that adds such a thing. It would be good for the forum to have one.

[Xarex 1]

Spell check. Just wrote a tutorial and it got accepted! I was always told: "You should always write to the point that if a child were to read it, they would understand it." A professor in college said this to me in my Social Psychology Lab class when I was trying to explain a potential research experiment. I did my best. But realized afterwards, I didn't do well enough. And rethought about it.. and it's similar to something like Wikipedia's great idea for people who aren't great with English or speak another language -- Simple English Wikipedia -- https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- explained in very plain basic simple English language without any fancy language. Pretty smart move to help people learn and understand what they are reading in the English language.