[stylist] JAWS and Our Craft

[Applebutter Hill]

Bridgit,
I'm sure that Jaws won't make anyone be a good writer, but it does have
advantages, and we might as well celebrate them. That said, I think that
there are a few things that screen reader users do that tend to blurr the
advantages. The most important is the speed. I know people who read at a
high rate of speed. Heck, I do it myself sometimes. But, when you're
editing, this is essentially shooting yourself in the foot. You're flying by
so fast that you aren't noticing that the sentence structures would add more
to the piece if they were subtly varied. You also probably miss the subtle
differences in Jaws' pronunciation that would alert you to the fact that
you've used the wrong word.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
Pollpeter
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2014 12:35 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] JAWS and Our Craft

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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