Are you PROUD of your online written material?

I chose "I do what I can, but never get help".

From a grammatical perspective, I do try to make sure the spelling, punctuation, etc. are ok.

My problem is I don't believe in "facts" or "truth" as most sources portray them.

One study says there are "5 reasons coffee is good for you". Another source may offer "7 ways that coffee is destroying your immune system".

Everybody has an agenda. We are all liars and prostitutes to some degree. Even the government sources or huge authority sites that writers seem to depend on for their research are not 100% credible to me when they speak in absolutes.

For example, in another post, the following statement was given as "fact"...

"The earth is 13.7 billion years old."

Not a fact. A fact by definition requires you to observe, experience, or have witnesses that something exists or is true.

Nobody can do that. We have no witnesses.

You could say "the latest studies based on our somewhat flawed mathematical computations seem to suggest that the earth could be up to 13.7 billion years old".

I'll buy that.

Now, I know some folks will say that's just semantics or that I'm taking things way too seriously.

And I get it.

But, I would challenge people to be perfectly honest with themselves. Are the "facts" or "truths" you believe today the result of careful research, experience, or first-hand knowledge on your part ...

Or, are they the result of persuasive people with hidden agendas telling you how you should believe?

Until you answer that, you are easily deceived.

So, am I PROUD of my online written material?

No. Not yet.

Fair enough.

Well this is where I had trouble with your questions. I'm not an amateur. While I am careful about the technical elements - more so in some works than others, such as a forum post, which I type fast and don't edit at all unless the spell checker is screaming at me. On a website I strive for perfection - but don't always hit it. I do, however, go back and read it later when the errors stand out. I am able to get stuff up without more than one or two errors first time, though. 100% on grammar, spelling, etc is almost impossible to achieve in long works. You can ask any author about that one. Even with several edits of a long work, there are going to be one or two errors no matter how many editors it goes through.

What I am concerned about as far as "pride" in my content, since I am familiar enough with the language to write fluidly -- is the actual content of the content (lol). Most of what I read online would just be damned embarrassing to post on my site. Shallow. Misinformed. Rehash. Lack of pizazz in writing style. There are the areas that really need to shine through to be much good to anyone - and even if google doesn't know that - readers do.

so... what erectly you mean?

It happens - but if you ever do any reading you will see that many novels have one or two errors in them (and I'm saying one or two, not scores of them). It's not because nobody proofed them. Congratulations on your perfection - but it's not the norm even with a lot of professionals on the case. It happens, but not 100% of the time. I would like to know what you did that was 1,500 pages. That's longer than the freaking health care bill and War and Peace, both of which contain typos.

Ah - you EDITED that much. I thought you were saying you both wrote and edited that many pages of a single work.

First off - it's not that teachers don't know the language - it's very difficult to edit your own work. You often read over the mistakes merely because you know what you were meaning to say and your eye won't always pick up what you actually said.

Secondly - it's a hell of a lot harder to edit a long work than a short one, even if you are going through tomes of material, because you get mesmerized more easily as your mind starts to flow with, and understand, the material. You won't find mistakes in the first pages of the work usually - they start to happen toward the middle and the end for the same reason - the reader becomes familiar with the material and expects rather than sees.

Third - the evolution of English has made for some bizarre spellings. Only an idiot savant can claim perfect spelling in this language. Spell checkers help immensely, but are not perfect either. The best even an extremely intelligent person can do in this language as far as spelling goes is a high percent of perfection. Most editors merely have a very deep sense of when they need to look a less frequently used word that's not real familiar to them up because it's questionable.

Forth - sometimes it's not a matter of not knowing. It's just a matter of not seeing. A lot of errors you will see sneak through are ones in which letters are either missing or transposed. That's not a lack of intelligence or pride - it's a visual glitch.

I realize that as an editor, you HAVE to be focused on perfection in a work - but as far as the work itself and the consumer's reaction to it, you can have one or two errors without it affecting your credibility in a several page piece of work or longer, a short work is not only easier to achieve perfection within, it is more important to do so. After a few errors, your credibility declines. Not a guess - linguistic science. There comes a point to which the insistence on 100% becomes more of a personal quirk than a real issue.

Giggle, Pat!

Okay, my turn.

I always turn out each and every piece I write with 100% perfection containing no misspellings, grammar, punctuation or structural errors...

Uh, Huh! And you should see me walk on water! :p

Of course I care, what writer wouldn't? However, I have found that trying to be anally perfect in everything mentioned above totally kills the creativity flow while writing. I strive to be correct, but come on, no one is perfect 100% of the time.

Also, with the English language continuously evolving, how can one be perfect? Perfection oft times leads to boring, boring material, imho, of course.

Terra