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Subject:Re: Death knell for quality content? (Beth Agnew) From:Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:24:28 -0700 (PDT)
"The Sleeper Effect" is fascinating and I'm going to be thinking about
this one all day. Thank you for the meme!
Standards of good writing have declined as writing has become more
prevalent. 500 years ago, a writer was a rare thing. Now it seems that
just about everyone has a book they're working on, and the "new,
amazing" books in bookstores are recycled plots and tired cliches, far
from amazing.
Garison's rule applies now as it has throughout history, but I think
our standards are uniquely low at this point in time. The more people
we want to make into writers, the fewer good writers we have, I guess.
Beth's corollary is correct however in that people who know quality
content will demand it, even if there are fewer of them. Even people
who don't know the difference between quality and not will often
recognize quality when they see it.
However, I feel it's my duty to point out that Helium, like WikiPedia
and EzineArticles and other such sites, makes its money not on content
but keywords. Specifically, Google keywords. People search for answers
and find content on the site, and look at all those penny per click ads
in the right-hand column.
It's not about writing. It's about SEO. It's also why it's foolish to
rely on content from any of these sites. Go find industry and academic
experts instead.
> I think it's very much a "you get what you pay for" situation. Better
> pay = better writing. As long as the market continues to accept poor
> quality writing, purveyors will provide it at the lowest possible
> cost.
>
> We're already victims of the sleeper effect -- you see enough bad
> writing, you unconsciously start to write that way yourself and your
> tolerance for what is "bad" lowers, unless you maintain constant
> vigilance. There are few gatekeepers anymore. Those print editors who
> tormented writers until the prose was perfect aren't around anymore.
> Publishers who refused to sacrifice quality for revenue have been
> eliminated by their corporate masters in favor of increased sales.
>
> The gap between the truly literate, meaning those who have studied
> literature enough to know what good writing looks like, and the
> illiterate is widening. We're seeing this in our students whose text
> messaging style permeates their academic essays.
>
> I choose to believe that good writing and good communication will
> always
> prevail, though fewer will be able to recognize it.
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