The editor fallacy

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by petrucci

I believe that editors and proof readers are of great value. However, this is an age of businesses being run on thin margins, and one in which most people couldn't care less about grammar.

Most people who read books (and they are certainly a minority of the general population, I agree) do care about it, I think.

[petrucci]

Well, the beauty of e-books and crowd sourcing is that once an error has been found and reported, it can be fixed and the book can be republished.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Based on the reviews I've seen posted over the past few years, you're correct. Although I'm not sure that I'd describe these as 'grammar vigilantes', it is true that people seem to be becoming more vigilant about grammar. My personal feeling is that it was something many readers never really 'saw' until it wasn't there. At that point, they realised quite how awful an experience it is to wade through reams of badly spelt, badly punctuated and badly structured sentences. No matter how good the story, I think it's very difficult for a reader to overcome a feeling of being short-changed if they've been made to work hard get anything out of a product on which they have spent time and (possibly) money.

Correct grammar and punctuation aren't just little niceties; they make the story understandable. You're right that readers don't see it when it's there, but when it's not, not only does the story look sloppy, but the reader has to guess at meanings and attempt to decipher sentences by filling in missing words and punctuation. Grammar is the structure that supports the story, and without it, the story collapses.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Correct grammar and punctuation aren't just little niceties; they make the story understandable. You're right that readers don't see it when it's there, but when it's not, not only does the story look sloppy, but the reader has to guess at meanings and attempt to decipher sentences by filling in missing words and punctuation. Grammar is the structure that supports the story, and without it, the story collapses.

I dunno, I've found that only the worst grammar mistakes can really break a story apart. Split infinitives, dangling participles, lie/lay, its/it's, hanged/hung, starting with a conjunction, and the like are relatively minor annoyances that don't really hurt a story.

[RHWright]

It comes down to this for me: if you expect to be paid like a professional, put out a professional quality product.

How you get there is your own business. If you can/need to pay someone a bunch of money, do it. If you have trusted friends with a good eye for detail who will do it out of the goodness of their hearts, fine. If you are the rare individual who can do it all (write, revise, proof, copyedit, convert, format, et. al.), more power to you.

What counts are the results. And, sorry, as a consumer with $$ in my pocket, I find that spelling errors, typos, and gross grammar errors (its/it's, your/you're, there/their/they're) are signs of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail that I do not expect from a professional.

Some of the more, shall we say, picky areas of grammar---that usually deal with colloquial versus formal usage---I can let go when they make sense in context. I'm not going to fault Capt. Kirk for saying, "To boldly go ..." Split that infinitive all you want Captain! But if he says, "tell the landing party their beaming dawn to the palnet and search for you're mother," I will certainly, and I think rightfully, have an issue with the professionalism of the publication. I don't care how cracking good the plotline is after repeated mistakes like that.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by RHWright

What counts are the results. And, sorry, as a consumer with $$ in my pocket, I find that spelling errors, typos, and gross grammar errors (its/it's, your/you're, there/their/they're) are signs of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail that I do not expect from a professional.

Good luck finding a professionally- edited work that doesn't have at least one of those mistakes on a regular basis.

[RHWright]

@teh603-
You're missing my point. Yes, mistakes happen and get by, even in professionally edited works. It doesn't change the professional standard to seek out and eliminate as many of them as possible.

The jist of many posts in this thread has been on the lack of necessity, at all, for good and thorough editing. That authors (especially indy ones) can just magically turn out "good enough" prose on their own, in a vacuum, and that we should excuse gross (i.e. numerous and pervasive) mistakes because the author is passionate about and tells a "good story."

Sorry, that doesn't cut it professionally. That's what would be known in my neighborhood as "amateur hour."

(I just realized how that may sound. I'm not targeting you or your work. Haven't read it. I'm speaking of things in general.)

As I said, results are what matter. Don't pay big dollars to get there if you don't need to. But get there & turn out a professional-grade product if you expect to be treated like a professional. Saying, "I'm an indy author/publisher and can't afford all the time and money to do that, so cut me some slack," just doesn't fly with me.

There are plenty of ways to turn out professional-grade work on a shoestring or no budget. It just takes time and dedication, which I think all serious writers should have for their work.

What I've seen of the writers around Mobilereads leads me to believe that most of the ones here do,in fact, do just that. Other indy authors can be of less certain quality.

[ebusinesstutor]

I certainly agree that the writer lacks enough distance from the work to edit it properly. When I write something, I carefully check it myself and then even print it out and go line by line and I still find I miss something.

I think it is because I am filling in the writing with what I meant to say, not what is on paper.

So, for important writing that I am publishing, I have someone else proofread it.

The crowdsourcing idea is one I have used as well. I often give copies to beta testers to get their feedback and they catch many errors.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by teh603

I dunno, I've found that only the worst grammar mistakes can really break a story apart. Split infinitives, dangling participles, lie/lay, its/it's, hanged/hung, starting with a conjunction, and the like are relatively minor annoyances that don't really hurt a story.

Split infinitives aren't errors, nor is starting a sentence with a conjunction.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Split infinitives aren't errors, nor is starting a sentence with a conjunction.

Depends on your English teacher.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by petrucci

Well, the beauty of e-books and crowd sourcing is that once an error has been found and reported, it can be fixed and the book can be republished.

You will never get the chance to make another first impression. Life may be too short for one to bother with proofing a book properly, but my life is too short to waste on a lot of the garbage out there.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Split infinitives aren't errors, nor is starting a sentence with a conjunction.

To some they might not be regarded as errors, but to most erudite people they most definitely are regarded as errors. I regard them as errors, and so do most of the professionals I work with - even American professionals. American William Strunk's "The Elements of Style" regards split infinitives as constructs to be avoided. It also recommends avoiding beginning a sentence with a conjunction. It defines writers who do so as "unskilled". The same with most British style and writing guides.

If writing one way will offend some people, and you are able to write in a manner perceived by all to be acceptable, why risk alienating any of your potential readers? Doing so seems foolish and pointless to me. People who are accepting of poor style or grammar will not be put off by an author writing well, while those who are not accepting of such things are an audience lost if you fail to write well.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

American William Strunk's "The Elements of Style" regards split infinitives as constructs to be avoided. It also recommends avoiding beginning a sentence with a conjunction. It defines writers who do so as "unskilled". The same with most British style and writing guides.

So here's a question- other than "because Strunk said so," what're the reasons for it? Does he even state his reasons or is he just quoting an earlier style guide?

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

To some they might not be regarded as errors, but to most erudite people they most definitely are regarded as errors. I regard them as errors, and so do most of the professionals I work with - even American professionals. American William Strunk's "The Elements of Style" regards split infinitives as constructs to be avoided. It also recommends avoiding beginning a sentence with a conjunction. It defines writers who do so as "unskilled". The same with most British style and writing guides.

It is commonly believed by the public that splitting infinitives is wrong. No modern usage guide says so. (From Geoff Pullum "All the good usage manuals and scholarly grammars now recognise that phrases of this sort have occurred in English since its earliest history. They generally note that in many cases placing an adjunct between to and the verb is stylistically preferable to other orderings.")

Link is here: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/grammar/splitinf.html

Here's a link to the M-W bit on prepositions at the end of sentences (under "prepositions at end." http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJ...page&q&f=false

The whole bit is worth reading, but the takeaway is that it is a "cherished superstition."

If writing one way will offend some people, and you are able to write in a manner perceived by all to be acceptable, why risk alienating any of your potential readers? Doing so seems foolish and pointless to me. People who are accepting of poor style or grammar will not be put off by an author writing well, while those who are not accepting of such things are an audience lost if you fail to write well.

I don't see the point it mangling the English language to uphold the cherished superstitions of those with an incomplete understanding of English. (To the extent that's even possible; there's not a way to write the perfectly English sentence "What are you looking for?" in a manner that doesn't end the sentence with a preposition ("For what are you looking?" isn't a substitute.)

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It is commonly believed by the public that splitting infinitives is wrong. No modern usage guide says so. (From Geoff Pullum "All the good usage manuals and scholarly grammars now recognise that phrases of this sort have occurred in English since its earliest history. They generally note that in many cases placing an adjunct between to and the verb is stylistically preferable to other orderings.")

Link is here: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/grammar/splitinf.html

Here's a link to the M-W bit on prepositions at the end of sentences (under "prepositions at end." http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJ...page&q&f=false

The whole bit is worth reading, but the takeaway is that it is a "cherished superstition."



I don't see the point it mangling the English language to uphold the cherished superstitions of those with an incomplete understanding of English. (To the extent that's even possible; there's not a way to write the perfectly English sentence "What are you looking for?" in a manner that doesn't end the sentence with a preposition ("For what are you looking?" isn't a substitute.)

Sir Winston Churchill had a similar opinion. This was his response to an editor who re-worded one of his sentences to avoid ending it with a preposition.

"This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” "

There are definitely exceptions to all rules and in English you often need to allow an exception to avoid clumsy or stilted sentences. Gowers, Strunk, Partridge etc., all accept this. This does not detract from the need to follow the accepted rules of grammar in non-exceptional cases.