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Subject:Re: Knock it off From:Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com> Date:Thu, 06 Apr 2000 15:44:15 -0500
I'm one of those people for whom spell checker was invented. Between my less than stellar spelling and appalling typing skills (so how did I manage to become a tech writer?), no telling how my text is going to come out.
Both Outlook and Netscape allow you the option of having your spelling automatically checked before the mail goes out. I enable this option. Some words I just simply can't spell correctly first time out, others, I know how to spell, but my fingers can't hit the right keys. It saves me a lot of embarrassment.
I find it also helps to look over what I've written...just in case I used the wrong word, left one out, don't make sense....whatever.
In any case, I'm hardly in a position to be tacky and point out other's mistakes in public. Do unto others and all that.
Jo Byrd
Donkeyxote -at- aol -dot- com wrote:
> I politely disagree with the assertion that this list is not a proper forum for noting mistakes in grammar, spelling, and usage. We are, after all, writers, and mistakes made in postings here may very reflects we make in our professional documentation.
>
> As a tech writer I often find it necessary to prove my competence and worth to programmers, engineers, and others who believe their competence to be more valuable than my own. Any mistakes I make can be used by these people to bolster such beliefs and are thus harmful to my career. Perhaps more importantly, mistakes made by other technical writers harm all technical writers, in that they enhance the common perception that we are not really skilled professionals, worthy of being taken seriously.
>
> Sadly, I've noticed many usage and spelling errors on this list site that do not appear to mere typos, errors that are glaring enough to make me wince. I believe that we all benefit when such errors are noted because this gives the writers who make them the chance to improve: and what better place to do so than in the (relative) safety of this list?
>
> So I, for one, welcome it when my mistakes are noted to me. Just do so, please, in a non-offensive manner, and I will be most grateful.
