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Subject:Re: What would you do? From:Ruth Glaser <ruthg -at- GORETEK -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 30 Jul 1996 09:17:56 -0500
Sue wondered if her standards for quality writing were too high. Before I
answer that, I have a few questions. (Please no flaming - my ignorance may
show here.)
1. In the sentence "Contacts are a subset of a prospect," is it the use
of "subset" as jargon that bothers you? Having worked with Contact
Management software, I can see an appropriate use for this construction.
2. My reference material (Hodges' Habrace College Handbook) has the
following rule:
Do not use commas to set off restrictive (necessary) clauses,
restrictive phrases, and restrictive appositives.
Note: Although some writers prefer to use "that" at the
beginning of restrictive clauses, "which" is also acceptable.
I do not use a comma before a restrictive clause introduced by "which".
Is this incorrect?
Now my comments:
Several of the errors you noted were unforgivable. However, I would
recognize that corporate style guides, editors, managers, etc. sometimes
make us write in ways we would rather not. A bulleted list of sentence
fragments, all terminated with periods could have been dictated by a
style guide.
IMHO, choosing the wrong verb tense, misspellings, spacing errors, etc.
are the fault of a writer and a good basis for disqualifying a potential
contractor. The use of periods with sentence fragments, etc. may be more
indicative of a corporate style, rather than a writer's ability.
I would give a little slack in certain areas and base my evaluation on
the writer's ability to organize information, explain things clearly, etc.
Ruth T. Glaser
ruthg -at- goretek -dot- com
--
Ruth T. Glaser e-mail: ruthg -at- goretek -dot- com
Goretek Data Systems, Inc. Phone: (612) 639-5043
900 Long Lake Road #151 Fax: (612) 639-5090
New Brighton, MN 55112 WWW: http://www.goretek.com
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