[stylist] JAWS and Our Craft

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

You would think this, but as an editor, I read several pieces written by
screenreader users, and their writing is still appalling, LOL!

But yes, as a person who relies mostly on JAWS for writing and editing,
I think it actually can work to my advantage. It depends on your comfort
level with screenreaders though.

At university, I was often asked to help classmates during small groups
with the technical aspect of their writing. We worked in small groups
like this often, and the instructor placed each of us for specific
reasons within the group. One of us had a strength in character
development, some with sentence structure, etc. I usually was placed for
writing dialogue, dream sequences and editing, which is pretty cool
considering I'm blind. Once my profs. Got to know me and my writing,
they realized I wasn't so different from my sighted classmates.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
Houts
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 8:17 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] JAWS and Our Craft



Glancing over some recent messages concerning screen readers and 
writing, I thought I'd pony up some experience of my own.  In general, 
my experience with Jaws as I carry on with my second novel has been 
spectacular, especially when considering that blindness itself is, to 
put it mildly, somewhat sub-optimal.  I wrote my first novel using JAWS 
with the Eloquence synthesizer  (I'm one of that screen reader's older 
customers --my serial number is only five figures long).  And as I 
prepare to plunge into the last third of my current book, I'm seeing 
that my writing has actually improved.  And I think that might be 
because writing with a screen reader forces the writer to pay attention 
to each and every word in a sentence, and make editorial decisions based

on rock solid standards about things like run-on sentences and the use 
of ten dollar words where two dollars would serve the purpose just as 
admirably.  Also, nowadays I have no patience for adverbs which clutter 
up my prose line.  Noun, verb phrase period, that's the way many of my 
sentences go.  Well, no, actually that's a bit of a lie.  I write a 
comparatively poetic prose line, but it's rooted, I think, in elementary

grammar, the exception being when I think a semicolon and dependent 
clause might be called for.

Anyway, I'd like to  know how other folks look at their writing from a 
technical perspective, and whether they feel that writing with a screen 
reader has helped or harmed their craft.  Any takers?


--Bill












-- 
"Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."

           --Jane Siberry


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