[Stylist] Spelling and Grammar Question

[Barbara HAMMEL]

> Vejas, could you give a couple of sample sentences to the person? Find sentences that have the same consistent errors, say, and give an example or two of how the structure could be better worked. If the person wants you to proof spelling, proof spelling and show them how lousy it is, if so. If people want to be serious about submitting work, they need to wake up and smell the ink. You can't just haphazardly slop down an idea and not care what it looks like when you send it in. Learn to spell — or at least to use a spell checker. I'm also not fond of telling someone what punctuation marks to use or not use. Teaching myself to be an editor — and having a patient author to work with — is teaching me how to help make their writing clear while not changing their writing voice. Writing shouldn't be, unless that's your genre, about saying what the audience wants to hear in the way you think they want to hear it, but instead saying what you want to tell them in the best way that you can.  
> 
> Barbara Hammel
> 
> On Oct 13, 2019, at 18:03, Vejas Vasiliauskas via Stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone, 
> I was just asked by a friend to proofread a small piece they wrote and are hoping to submit to a magazine. They admitted that spelling and grammar are not their strong-point. 
> I think it's admirable to recognize this, but I'm not really sure what the best approach would be from here. It needs a lot of work, and essentially needs to be re-written. I don't want to re-write it, as that would seem very patronizing. At the same time I feel that if I were to point out every single error, it could be too overwhelming. This is the second time I was given the article to look at: the first time I just mentioned that they needed to check spelling and grammar, but maybe I was being too vague because people aren't always sure what to do?
> I'd really appreciate any thoughts. The message behind the article is great and I really feel that if it were phrased correctly, it would do very well. 
> Thanks, 
> Vejas   
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