Several of you have mentioned your disappointment with the writing skills you learned in school.

I've been helping people learn to write better for thirty years. Everything from the basics of spelling and punctuation, to the more complicated points of grammar and syntax, all the way to advanced topics like style and concision. Everybody from high school students to college graduates to foreigners struggling with a second language.

If anybody wants to post a question here, or a writing sample for review, I'll be glad to help.

As you can see from my own postings, I'm not a fuddy-duddy. I'm not going to take anybody to task for using slang or cute spelling tricks. (Unless I can't understand them. Then, of course, they are really bad writing habits!) You tell me what you want to learn and I'll help.

If you surprise me by posting a hundred messages the first day, I reserve the right to run away screaming.

From time to time, I will reorganize my individual responses and move them closer to the bottom of the thread. They will be re-edited and combined into a couple of postings with common themes, hopefully to make them more helpful to others with similar questions. I hope you all don't mind.

how do you go about writing a book?

I agree with fraggleRocker SpuriousMonkey. The best thing you could do is practice: maybe get a job for a magazine/newspaper. Dictionaries are very sueful. try to have one at hand. Not only can spellings and definitions be found but Punctuation is also listed i.e. colon, comma and even i.e. is listed. I didn't even know that i.e. was supposed to have another dot after the e until i checked. :) If you want to read and write then that's what you must do: read and write. It's as simple as that.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
At some point you have to practice writing and let someone give you feedback on the things that you personally need to learn and practice.

And that is when the eternal question must be asked: Who to you ask for feedback?

Writing - punctuation, grammar, spelling - can be taught, and you know when it's technically right or wrong, but creative writing is a whole different ballpark.

Originally posted by Weiser_Dub
And that is when the eternal question must be asked: Who to you ask for feedback? Writing - punctuation, grammar, spelling - can be taught, and you know when it's technically right or wrong, but creative writing is a whole different ballpark.For sure. There are people who have the knack and specialize in teaching that. I'm not one of them. If anybody wants help cleaning up the kinds of errors I see on this board, or improving the quality of an assignment, or writing a report, manual, thesis, etc., I'm your guy. But if you want to do creative writing that's way out of my league.

I'm not sure whether I should take this particular thread seriously or not.
I DO know you have opened "a can of worms". Your posts will now be scrutinized by many.

I, personally, forgive MOST foreigners for their poor grammar. At least they are trying.
However, if they can afford to make posts here, then they can surely afford Word, Wordperfect, or some other "aide".

Originally posted by immane1
I'm not sure whether I should take this particular thread seriously or not.I opened it in all seriousness. If anyone would like help learning to write better, I will be happy to provide it. I don't mind levity, it makes things go easier.I DO know you have opened "a can of worms". Your posts will now be scrutinized by many.I'm used to it. I do a lot of writing on the job. Everybody hits the wrong key once in a while and if we're not being graded on these things we don't proofread them three times.I, personally, forgive MOST foreigners for their poor grammar. At least they are trying.I'm in no position to criticize anyone for their mastery of a foreign language. I write fairly bad Spanish, really bad German, and I'm lucky if I can remember two hundred Chinese characters and write half of them correctly.However, if they can afford to make posts here, then they can surely afford Word, Wordperfect, or some other "aide".Spell checkers are not all they're cracked up to be. The simplest, most common errors, like "its" for "it's" and "their" for "there" or "they're" are the ones they can't catch.

Nonetheless, I've had a great deal of experience working with adult English as a Second Language students. Having a passing familiarity with the other person's language is a great help. I can understand what they're not hearing because their language doesn't have some of our sounds (or vice versa), and what they're missing because of different grammatical paradigms or word order.

I've worked with several people who were rated "Improvement Needed" in the "written and oral skills" section of their performance evaluation, which would have held them back from promotion or even put their job at risk in event of a downsizing. They progressed to "satisfactory" and we were all very happy.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Well, I'm glad the first question was a simple and easy one!

Please give me some more data.

Fiction? Poetry? Science? History? Who is your intended audience?

Do you have a publisher lined up? Do you expect it to be a small distribution because of a narrow appeal, or is it one that could end up on the best seller list if you're really good and really lucky?

What kind of published writing experience do you have up until now? Letters to the editor? Articles? Trade press, general press? Is this your first attempt to have something accepted for publication? Have you written anything approaching the size of a book before?

Every author needs people to help, to reality-test the ideas and the potential appeal, to proofread, to offer helpful suggestions. Start lining them up now. You should have at least two people who will be happy to read the entire book twice and who won't be bashful about giving you honest comments on it. (That's why they expect to have to read it a second time after you incorporate their suggestions!)

By the way, this forum is a good place to practice good writing habits. Check the punctuation of your original message.

I wrote some scientific papers.
I am editor-in-chief of a very local journal.
I wrote about 2 and a half chapters once on a book on the history of science, but then switched careers.
I wrote some stuff on my website.


And i don't know the subject yet. My main problem is that I am not a native englsih speaker. That might hinder me most and I am not interested in translations, because i hardly use my native language anymore. Therefore it is almost as bad as my english.
I guess it was a bad idea to write a book.

another question then

Is punctuation really that important?

Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
Is punctuation really that important?

I felt a stabbing pain shudder in my shoulder! It immediately sent information to the axons of the brain - images, colors, flashes - and I was uberwhelmed, sending me searching for truth, because I wanted, desperately, to believe in something. Oi vei, "I thoght to myself." Or, ay yi yi. I was fed up. The towel had been tossed in the ring. The white flag waved. Finitio. Wow, this makes no sense, but I think it was guided - towards the end - by a dream. :D

Now, what was the question?

Originally posted by Weiser_Dub
I felt a stabbing pain shudder in my shoulder! It immediately sent information to the axons of the brain - images, colors, flashes - and I was uberwhelmed, sending me searching for truth, because I wanted, desperately, to believe in something. Oi vei, "I thoght to myself." Or, ay yi yi. I was fed up. The towel had been tossed in the ring. The white flag waved. Finitio. Wow, this makes no sense, but I think it was guided - towards the end - by a dream. :D

Now, what was the question?

you made a spelling mistake..is that a capital offense similar to punctuation errors?

Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
how do you go about writing a book?

The first you need to have is an interesting and unique topic.:)

i evah a cipot:

'the social structure of sciforums'

Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
i evah a cipot:

'the social structure of sciforums'

I can hear the death knell ringing in the ears of the hierarchy, armed to the teeth with negating precision...the finger of power firmly set on the button..the social structure of sciforums..has the vaginal ring about it:D :m:

Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
how do you go about writing a book?
I guess the first thing to ask yourself if you have a story or message you wish to tell.
I see no reason in writing just for the sake of writing.
If something moves you, than you end up writing about it without any thought as to how you are going to come up with an ideas.
They just flow out of you.

That's why I don't really understand the concept of writers block.
If you don't have something to write, why the hell are you writing?

i usually write about nothing....i like nothing...see my website for examples.

Fraggle, please work on my essay (or whatever the verb is, criticize, judge, whatever). I wrote it extemporaneously...


As Spinoza says that "truth is its own measure" as opposed to Protagoras, the truth is a concept that may seem vague at sometimes. Many philosophers have tried to define what truth means and how it is obtained, but it seems that truth is really its own measure. Such case is illustrated by M. J. Adler, who talks of "the simple problem of truth" and "the difficult problem of the truth" in one of his works.

He claims that the simple truth is generally obtained by searching for the correspondence between one's perception and reality. This, generally being personal, may contain subjective truths such as opinions. However, the dilemma lies in the difficult problem of truth. Adler goes further into the depths of the process of acquiring truth and he deals with the problem that emerges as the steps in obtaining the simple truth becomes more complex. He says that there are cases such that one cannot compare what one knows and what one wants to know because measuring one by the standard of another would not surely bring truth to light.

In addition, Adler claims that there is the impossibility of interactions between the reality and the beings such as ourselves. We may be able to ask reality questions, but the reality simply won't respond or it cannot respond, for it is not a being. Reality is what Sylvia Plath precisely describes in her poem "the mirror". It is neither prejudiced nor cruel, but only truthful. But once again this causes the emergence of the same question. Is reality necessarily truthful?

In many cases, this case seems to be valid, but we will never know if truth and reality are mutually exclusive, since Adler's case also makes a coherent plea.

spuriousmonkey
can you find the punctuation error?

Originally posted by Weiser_Dub
spuriousmonkey
can you find the punctuation error?

i thought that there were 2?

Fraggle... would you mind working on my essay? :P

i just plain hate proofreading my own manuscripts...usually you have been working on them for quite a long time and basically you are fed up with them. And then come the final proofs and to be honest I hardly proofread them. In fact, it is rare that I would actually reread my own work after it has been published.

You are just happy that the nasty teenage child has finally left the house...

Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
i just plain hate proofreading my own manuscripts...usually you have been working on them for quite a long time and basically you are fed up with them. And then come the final proofs and to be honest I hardly proofread them. In fact, it is rare that I would actually reread my own work after it has been published.

You are just happy that the nasty teenage child has finally left the house...
I had the same problem when I wrote my trilogy.....proofreading became forum reading! ;)

Originally posted by IXL777
I had the same problem when I wrote my trilogy.....proofreading became forum reading! ;)

i'm proofreading right now...that's why i have been posting a lot lately...

Shouldn't it be:
"Anybody want help improving THEIR writing?"
?

;)

No. "Anybody" is singular. Furthermore, it's a sentence fragment. It should be: "Does anybody want help improving his or her writing?"

Think of what it means in English: "in other words". Maybe it does need a comma but I thought it meant 'that is to say that'.

Can anyone recommend a good place to publish a book? Any country will do, even if I bloody have to use two stamps.
The only places I've tried 'only accept solicited publications' meaning I'd have to get a bloody agent, and excuse the sarky, but that's wicked impossible.
Thank you, cheers.

Originally posted by Neville
Maybe "i.e." does need a comma but I thought it meant "that is to say that".Actually you're almost right and I'm completely wrong. It's an abbreviation of Latin "id est," which means, literally, "that is." My instincts tell me that two commas are right, but I haven't had a chance to look it up. I defer to anyone who's got the answer.

Originally posted by Niudo
Can anyone recommend a good place to publish a book? The only places I've tried only accept solicited publications.That's tough. It's not easy here in the U.S., because each year fewer Americans are capable of reading. People go to "vanity publishers," who at best act as paid service providers and at worst are predators. You pay them a fee up front to cover the cost of printing and publishing, and you get a certain percentage of THEIR net profit off the sale of each book. I'd guess that it would have to sell several thousand copies just for the author to break even.

People who are really confident of their ability and their luck are willing to go this route, because at least it gets their first book out there where SOMEBODY might notice it.

Perhaps things are better in one of the other anglophone countries.

What type of book are you talking about? Fiction, poetry, science, history, biography, self-improvement, gardening...?

That's tough. It's not easy here in the U.S., because each year fewer Americans are capable of reading. Is this really true?? :D :D :D :)

I'll start with the "nuts and bolts," a line edit of the essay. Then afterward I'll offer my more general, higher-level comments.

As Spinoza says that Never put "that" before a direct quotation. "That" is only for introducing indirect quotations, which are not word-for-word and don't use quotation marks. So: As Spinoza says, "Truth is... "truth is its own measure" I would put a comma here. Say it out loud, and I think you'll find yourself pausing here. Also, if "Truth" were the first word in Spinoza's original sentence, then capitalize it in the quotation as well. as opposed to Protagoras, the truth is a concept that may seem vague at sometimes. You probably meant "at some times." I don't think "sometimes" is a word; it's "sometime." But in any case, that's a bit of an awkward phrase. How about simply "at times"? Many philosophers have tried to define what truth means and how it is obtained, This is really getting picky, but is "obtain" the right choice of words? Does one obtain truth, or perhaps "reach" it? Choice of words is personal, but I found that phrase a little jolting. but it seems that truth is really its own measure. Such case "Such a case" -- When "such" is followed by a singular noun that would take the indefinite article in another construction, bring it along. "Such cases," "such weather," but "such a nice cat." is illustrated by M. J. Adler, who talks of "the simple problem of truth" and "the difficult problem of the truth" in one of his works.I think you'd better give the title.

He claims that the simple truth is generally obtained Again I'm jolted by "obtain." If you get to something by "searching" for it, I think you've "reached," "attained" or "achieved" it -- something in that family. by searching for the correspondence between one's perception and reality. This, generally being personal, may contain subjective truths such as opinions. However, the dilemma lies in the difficult problem of truth. Adler goes further into the depths of the process of acquiring Hmm... I'm getting the sinking feeling that these verbs may be Adler's choices and not yours. "Obtain," "acquire." A different family than mine. If so, far be it from me to argue with Adler. truth and he deals with the problem that emerges as the steps in obtaining the simple truth becomes Watch for agreement of subject and verb, no matter how widely separated. "Steps.... become," not "becomes." more complex. He says that there are cases such that I feel like I'm just taking issue with a famous philosopher's writing style, which you are merely adhering to out of respect. Nonetheless, I would say "cases in which," not "cases such that." one cannot compare what one knows and what one wants to know because measuring one by the standard of another "Another" usually implies multiple choices. If there is only one other, then "of the other" should be used. would not surely bring truth to light. I'm not sure whether you really mean "would not surely," meaning it might or it might not, or "surely would not," meaning no way Jose. Might or might not is a difficult construction to render appropriately in any given context. If that's what you meant, well, I didn't understand you, suggesting that this was not the clearest choice of expressions. How about introducing a different, more positive verb, like "guarantee," "secure," or "promise," and rephrasing the text a bit to accommodate it?

In addition, Adler claims that there is the impossibility Again, if that is Adler's language I am humbled. But in modern English we would say "there is no possibility," or "Adler asserts the impossibity of." of interactions between the reality and the beings such as ourselves. We may be able to ask reality questions, but the reality simply won't respond or it cannot respond How about "simply will not or can not respond"? A little less convoluted. Today's style authorities all urge brevity., for it is not a being. Reality is what Sylvia Plath precisely describes in her poem "the mirror". Punctuation: in her poem, "The Mirror." If it's e.e. cummings and it's important to retain his iconoclastic rebellion against style manuals, then do it. But normally titles are in "title case": All words are capitalized except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, plus the first word no matter what part of speech it is. It is neither prejudiced nor cruel, but only truthful. But once again this causes the emergence of the same question. Is reality necessarily truthful?

In many cases, this case case... case ... Avoid repeating the same word so close to the first instance, unless it's organic chemistry and there's no choice. seems to be valid, but we will never know if truth and reality are mutually exclusive, since Adler's case also makes a coherent plea.

I promised to follow that with a higher-level critique, but I don't have much to say. You understand your subject, your style is adequately succinct, you don't screw up parallel constructions, active/passive voice, present/past, or any of the common problem paradigms.

If this were part of a thesis, I believe, with the corrections noted, it would meet with approval. If it's a letter to the editor, well, I didn't count the words, but it seems compact enough. If it's too long for the standards of the publication you'll just have to carefully excise some text without destroying continuity or logic.

My feeling is that your problems are all at the level of style, choice of words, and, occasionally, punctuation.

Great job!

Well, that's the U.S for you. Americans always make everything so bloody difficult. Nothing personal, you're all [fairly] great people. :D

It's actually a realistic fiction novel, though that kind of thing isn't really what I do. My blodge teacher thought it was swell, but she's a deranged squirrel, so, you know... ah well, cheers. Plus, she practically threatened me with bodily harm to let her read it.

Bloody hypocrite.

I suppose it's what you'd call a Cinderella story, but I poured a lot of myself into it- making it rather sarky. Oh well. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Thank you, but I refuse to pay someone to exploit my book- I'd rather spring for a bloody agent.

Actually, it's stupid, really. You can't get an agent till you have something published and you can't get something published till you have a agent.

Bloody impossible!

Cheers and thanks, mon ami!

Niudo

Originally posted by Neville
"Each year fewer Americans are capable of reading." --- Is this really true?Not literally, I suppose. Our official literacy rate is still within the standards for the developed world, 98.5 percent or something like that.

But the compehension is fading. My wife just looked over some training materials for copy writing (advertising, etc.) and they said that if you want to get your message across you should write at the sixth-grade level. That's eleven-year-old children, in case we don't use the same grade numbering system.

Worse, the sixth-grade reading level is not what it used to be. The "social promotion" phonomenon of pushing kids into the next grade whether or not they've mastered the classes of the previous one results in high school graduates who are effectively illiterate and the need for "remedial reading" classes for first-year university students. And I am neither making that up nor exaggerating it!

And the sheer desire to read is being lost. They've been warning us about that since the invention of TV, and they were right. Whether for entertainment or information, each generation devotes a bit more of its time to the screen than the page. It frightens me that the vast majority of Americans get most of their news from TV. Not only is the depth of coverage less because of the speed advantage of reading over talking, but video images are easily used to subtly tell you HOW TO FEEL instead of WHAT HAPPENED.

I cling to the hope that the Internet will turn this around. Kids spend far more time on written correspondence than they did even ten years ago. That will probably make reading an easier and more natural choice when they become adults.

Wow, Fraggle! You did such an excellent job with my writing. I don't how to thank you. And yes. You are absolutely right in that I need to improve my choice of vocab and other things. I really thank you very much for putting much effort in my writing. I really appreciate it. You earned my eternal gratitude. :D

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
The best question to ask is: Do you think in English? Do you compose your own thoughts in English? If so, then you're probably better off writing in English. Even if you can think in both languages, it's probably better to start in the target language rather than translating. But if you think in your first language and then translate into English before speaking or writing, perhaps you should consider writing in it.

yes, I think in english…I switched to thinking in english about 4-5 years ago.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
If you're not sure of the answer to that question, try this one. When you dream, are the people speaking English? Dreams come from your unconscious, and if your unconscious has adopted English that's all you need to know. (It's OK if you dream in both languages, in fact that would be normal.)
[/B]

I dream in images…
Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
How much, and what kind, of editing do you do? Do you actually line-edit other people's articles? If you can do that, then you're used to spotting errors. If you "only" browbeat people into getting their articles in on time, shorten them if they're too long, arrange them into a sensible sequence, and handle complaints from both writers and readers, you've got a lot of skills that will be helpful in your own writing. [/B]
Well…the journal is in english but most writers (all so far) are not native english speakers. I therefore correct their english mainly. It is a bit difficult to know how far I should go, because we are just starting and I do not want to scare off potential contributors already in this early stage.
I only really edit my own stuff for this journal. I gotten into the habit of seriously shortening my writings whenever I have the chance. I try to keep things simple, although I do not always succeed of course. But sometimes I manage to shorten it by as much as 50%. I do correct some punctuation when I am editing, but I'm quite relaxed about it. I even let some smilies get past me.
I also have been a reviewer or referee on scientific papers of course, but that is slightly different. Good journals have a language editor and for the not so good journals you just mark the unclear passages. It's not really your job to correct their language, although the editors normally appreciate it when you do. It saves them work after all. I usually just mark things in the text.

This is a rather nice thread, Fraggle Rocker, my compliments to you.

As much as anyone my vocabulary and spelling lacks the necessarily study to make them tight in the, "putting to text". Guess you could say that I never really applied myself during the english classes in school. Strangely, I feel that lack more now, than ever before.

Oh, it is not that the meaning does not come through. It is more that the proofreading I should be doing isn't done before the post button is hit. Not only that but the lack of clear rules on punctuation, whether I have forgotten them long ago or just never learn them properly does chaff at me.

Then again, maybe it is just laziness on my part.

I tried to be aware of my dreams today and I noticed that there was a verbal component. However, there didn't seem to be a dialogue with different voices, but I was more or less acting as a commentator, and even stranger; I realized that I was performing all the dialogue with my own internal voice.

I gather that my memory mislead me into thinking that there wasn't a verbal component to my dreams. Maybe because it is the images that are most memorable.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker


Pick a phrase from further into the sentence and move it. Instead of

I ran into Suzy in the hardware store yesterday

How about

Yesterday I ran into Suzy in the hardware store

Or

While shopping for hardware yesterday, I ran into Suzy.


This is quite fun.

What about:
Suzy was in the hardware store yesteday. We bumped into each other.

But then 'we' have the 'we', which might also pose a problem.

On the subject of writing books I would say that there is no right or wrong way, only personal choice. The best way to see different styles and discover which one, for you at least, makes for the best reading it is advissable to read. Read different books, even if it's only a chapter or a few pages, and this will broaden your perspective on writing and how to write.

For ideas on books I have done the same as some of you i.e. forgotten idea's that I thought where brilliant and now are gone, but they probbaly weren't that good anyway. The one's I have remembered make me glad that i didn't put any work into them. Using computers is probably best because idea's can be grouped and amendments can be made, as someone wrote.

How many of you feel that it will always be like this i.e. any idea or peice of writing you do will always be looked back at as inferior, by yourself of course, because one is always learning and seeing how things could be/have been done better?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Again, I urge you to give some thought to the choice of expressive medium. Perhaps you've never even tried to draw a cartoon, or take a photograph that was more than a fifteen-cent postcard with your friend's face added, or record a tune that popped into your head and you find yourself whistling, or design a logo for your own stationery, or paint a picture of your favorite animal on your car, or design a garden, or.....


i spend two years in art school and did nothing but painting for a long time. But I stopped and it is over...never again. They only artwork I still do is fo rmy site and my scientific work.-

A compilation of postings on this topic.
Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
how do you go about writing a book?Well, I'm glad the first question was a simple and easy one!

Please give me some more data.

Fiction? Poetry? Science? History? Who is your intended audience?

Do you have a publisher lined up? Do you expect it to be a small distribution because of a narrow appeal, or is it one that could end up on the best seller list if you're really good and really lucky?

What kind of published writing experience do you have up until now? Letters to the editor? Articles? Trade press, general press? Is this your first attempt to have something accepted for publication? Have you written anything approaching the size of a book before?

Every author needs people to help, to reality-test the ideas and the potential appeal, to proofread, to offer helpful suggestions. Start lining them up now. You should have at least two people who will be happy to read the entire book twice and who won't be bashful about giving you honest comments on it. (That's why they expect to have to read it a second time after you incorporate their suggestions!)

By the way, this forum is a good place to practice good writing habits. Check the punctuation of your original message.

Reading vs. WritingOriginally posted by Neville
The best thing you could do is practice: maybe get a job for a magazine/newspaper.I didn't know where Spurious was coming from (how can you ever know where something spurious is coming from?) so I started off with some really general tips. If you really don't have any experience submitting something you've written to a publisher or a publication and having it show up in print, it's best to start small and not just dive into a book. If you're in school, most school papers are desperate for staff. Writing letters to the editor is great. You usually feel passionately about the topic so you put a lot of energy and attention into it. And it's not nearly as difficult to get a letter printed as a whole article. If you feel a book inside you and you've just got to let it out, then by all means do so, but you'd probably do well to take notes that can be expanded later, rather than just start writing chapter one. Most professional writers do that even if they've already written twenty books.


Originally posted by spuriousmonkey
I wrote some scientific papers.Good start. The standards in that field are pretty high.I am editor-in-chief of a very local journal.How much, and what kind, of editing do you do? Do you actually line-edit other people's articles? If you can do that, then you're used to spotting errors. If you "only" browbeat people into getting their articles in on time, shorten them if they're too long, arrange them into a sensible sequence, and handle complaints from both writers and readers, you've got a lot of skills that will be helpful in your own writing.And i don't know the subject yet.Well, that's a big problem! I get the impression that we can at least narrow it down to non-fiction. I wouldn't be as much help with fiction. It sounds like you have a lot of stuff inside you that wants to come out and you just haven't got it organized in your head so you don't know what to write first. A good way to deal with that is to be very compulsive about WRITING NOTES whenever a good idea pops into your brain. Do it on Excel so you can record the category, date, references, etc., and sort it later. When you go back through your notes you may see that you've actually got a lot of interesting ideas on one topic so that would be the first one to write about.

However, this is not easy. It requires a lot of discipline. It's so easy to say, "I'll write it down later." You really intend to, but then you forget. I could write a whole book out of the stuff I've forgotten, except that I forgot it all. If you're not sitting at your computer most of your life like us older folks, then write notes on paper and transcribe them once a day or once a week. Or maybe get a hand-held computer like a Palm Pilot. This is really important, I can't stress that enough. Very few people can write a book without a whole lot of notes, and that turns into zero people if you're talking about non-fiction.My main problem is that I am not a native englsih speaker.What was your first language? I've been an amateur linguist for most of my life. I might have some insight into the kinds of issues that arise in making the transition from your particular language to English.That might hinder me most and I am not interested in translations, because i hardly use my native language anymore. Therefore it is almost as bad as my english.You really need to make a very careful decision there. If you can actually write better in your first language, some people would advise you to do it. I'm not sure which side I'd take in the debate but you should make an informed choice, rather than an assumption.

The best question to ask is: Do you think in English? Do you compose your own thoughts in English? If so, then you're probably better off writing in English. Even if you can think in both languages, it's probably better to start in the target language rather than translating. But if you think in your first language and then translate into English before speaking or writing, perhaps you should consider writing in it.

If you're not sure of the answer to that question, try this one. When you dream, are the people speaking English? Dreams come from your unconscious, and if your unconscious has adopted English that's all you need to know. (It's OK if you dream in both languages, in fact that would be normal.)I guess it was a bad idea to write a book.Absolutely not! Anything you do that is creative is a positive thing for your life. Art, music, writing, crafts, anything. A friend of mine is about 55. He just got this great idea two years ago and sat down and wrote a novel. He'd never written anything like that in his life. He sent it off to a publisher and they published it. It didn't sell a million copies and he didn't get rich, but he sure is one satisfied dude.I just plain hate proofreading my own manuscripts...usually you have been working on them for quite a long time and basically you are fed up with them.That’s not uncommon. In fact for most people it’s very difficult to proofread something they wrote themselves. You might catch a keyboard error where you hit the wrong letter, but for other kinds of errors, if you thought it was right the first time you’ll still think it’s right the second time. For a serious piece of writing you need someone else to proofread it, even if you have to pay for it.And then come the final proofs and to be honest I hardly proofread them.You might consider reading the finals because the printer might have injected their own errors. But still, since the final is the most important, you really need somebody else to proof it.In fact, it is rare that I would actually reread my own work after it has been published. You are just happy that the nasty teenage child has finally left the house.You must find the writing process very tedious to feel that way. I hope I can help fix that.

How to write a book -- or WHETHER to write one
"Do the people in your dreams speak English:" --- I dream in images.That's an interesting revelation about a person who says he aspires to be a writer. Your dreams, which are important windows into your spirit, do not have a verbal component. They are visual.

I have to ask the question: Are you positive that writing is what you want to do? Your earlier remarks also belie mixed feelings about the art of writing. You said that once you finished writing something, you were glad to be rid of it. Could it be that your intention to write comes from a desire to communicate with your fellow humans, who just happen to use written language as one of their primary means of communication, rather than from an actual love of writing as a specific way to communicate?

If you think you have to write to get your ideas out to people, that's not really correct. People share their ideas, reflections, and dreams through music, painting, photography, sculpting, and many other arts and crafts. There is an advantage in non-verbal communication: It transcends language, era, and culture. We understand the messages in Tchaikovsky's music, even though very few Americans can read Russian literature. The language of ancient Egypt is so dead that even linguists have difficulty reading it, yet their art speaks to all of us. Anthropologists dig up carvings made by people whom we can't even identify, whose languages died 25,000 years ago, yet we can still "read" them.

Anyway, that's something to think about. Meanwhile, let's get to your questions and answers.Well…the journal is in English but most writers (all so far) are not native english speakers. I therefore correct their English mainly. It is a bit difficult to know how far I should go, because we are just starting and I do not want to scare off potential contributors already in this early stage.That is a difficult situation. You have to balance your obligation to the writers against your obligation to the readers. Are the journal's readers also from the same immigrant community? If they are, you will do them a major service by providing a journal that is a guide to proper use of English. If you explain it that way to your writers, they should be able to understand it. Especially since you are also providing the same valuable service to them.I only really edit my own stuff for this journal.The problem with this is that you will see the major issues, such as brevity, which you point out in the following section. But people rarely catch their own smaller errors, in spelling, grammar, style, and punctuation. In any publication, when the editor himself/herself writes a piece, ANOTHER person edits it.I have gotten into the habit of seriously shortening my writings whenever I have the chance. I try to keep things simple, although I do not always succeed of course. But sometimes I manage to shorten it by as much as 50%.That's great. For many writers, the most difficult skill is to make their work shorter. My wife is very good at that; her writing is very condensed and powerful. I shorten my own writing as much as I possibly can, then she comes along and takes out another 30%.I do correct some punctuation when I am editing, but I'm quite relaxed about it.At best, incorrect punctuation makes writing a little more difficult to read, because it is misleading. At worst, it can change the meaning of a sentence. I urge you to pay more attention to punctuation errors. It's good practice, because it will help you avoid errors in your own punctuation.I also have been a reviewer or referee on scientific papers of course, but that is slightly different. Good journals have a language editor and for the not so good journals you just mark the unclear passages. It's not really your job to correct their language, although the editors normally appreciate it when you do. It saves them work after all. I usually just mark things in the text.You have a lot of experience that is of great use to a writer. And it shows. Your own writing is very good. As I said, I would never have guessed that English is not your first language. Most of your errors seem to be caused by lazy fingers, for example not hitting the "shift" key often enough.

Media of expression[In] my dreams today there was a verbal component. However, I realized that I was performing all the dialogue with my own internal voice.That's not at all unusual. Dream analysis is an entire field of study. You get into the eternal argument between the 19th Century Freudians and the 21st-Century Jungians and the hard-nosed guys in lab coats who prefer a model of the human spirit that lacks an actual spiritual vector. To make a long story short, unless it's a very close member of your family or someone who's been very important to you for years and years, all the people in your dreams are really different parts of you.I gather that my memory misled me into thinking that there wasn't a verbal component to my dreams. Maybe because it is the images that are most memorable.That revelation makes your style of dreaming quite a bit less shocking to me, because at least the characters do speak. However, it does not allay the suspicion that your creative instinct is not terribly excited about the prospect of being expressed verbally; that it is merely being a good sport and recognizing language as the most-used human communication medium.

And it would be wrong. As I have pointed out on other threads, something like 75% of our communication is non-verbal. Body language, facial expression, gestures, vocal but non-verbal vectors like tone of voice and cadence. The Internet abounds with evidence to support that contention. The invention of "smilies." People right here on SciForums using colored fonts. Websites that are so beserk with colors and graphics and animation that it's difficult to find and read the text.

Again, I urge you to give some thought to the choice of expressive medium. Perhaps you've never even tried to draw a cartoon, or take a photograph that was more than a fifteen-cent postcard with your friend's face added, or record a tune that popped into your head and you find yourself whistling, or design a logo for your own stationery, or paint a picture of your favorite animal on your car, or design a garden, or.....

If you haven't already done so, spend some time deliberately trying to receive the message from other people's non-verbal art. You seem to have an attachment to visual images, so start there. Art galleries and museums are great, but so are clothing stores, botanical gardens, picture-intensive magazines, etc. Movies and TV are unfortunately at a low point now that they've discovered computer animation and MTV-style five-second edits, but there's still lots to admire there if you're patient and tolerant and not easily grossed out.

Your Muse is clearly trying to express him/herself, but to use the Jungian model, I'm not quite sure which of the Muses is yours.

It's the nature of humanity's capacity for different types of endeavor, that the vast majority of our endeavors fail. Cf. the number of business startups that fail every year. That's not the mark of a weak economy but a strong one. People are out there trying some really different stuff.

The same is true of ideas. Only a small percentage of them bear fruit, but it's a mistake to assume it's only the most recent ones. They pop up at random. If you don't record them all you're going to lose some of your best.

Media of expression. So try some of the others.

I spent two years in art school and did nothing but painting for a long time. But I stopped and it is over...never again. The only artwork I still do is for my site and my scientific work.OK, that takes care of one form of expression. That leaves other graphic arts such as cartooning and semiotics (creation of symbols). Plus music, needlework, gardening. Plus all the three-dimensional art forms such as sculpture, glass, ceramics, and metalworking. Plus everything I forgot to mention.

Artists tell me that some of them "envision" in two dimensions (e.g., canvas, paper), while others do it in three (e.g., sculpting, glass). Most painters get a headache when they try to work in three dimensions, and most sculptors feel frustrated working in two. You may be a 3-D person. It would be worth giving it a try.

A compilation of postings on these topicsDictionaries are very sueful. try to have one at hand.Ditto for spell checkers, or just proofreading your own writing. "sueful"? Sounds like a word for a lawyer's favorite client! What happened to the capital T?Not only can spellings and definitions be found but Punctuation is also listed i.e. colon, comma and even i.e. is listed.Again, just for fun, go back over that sentence and review the punctuation. I figure every posting on this thread can serve as a lesson to anyone reading it, so I'm just asking you to help me. This lesson: "i.e." is generally both preceded and followed by a comma. Think of what it means in English: "in other words". If you used that phrase, you would precede and follow it with a comma. It's often useful to expand the abbreviation and translate it into English to figure out how to punctuate it. If you can't do that, look it up. Another easy lesson.I didn't even know that i.e. was supposed to have another dot after the e until i checked.Principle: If one of a series of run-together letters (no spaces between them) has a period after it, then all the letters in the series must be abbreviations as well. If that's true, then every letter must have its own period.

Learning to Write by ReadingIf you want to read and write then that's what you must do: read and write. It's as simple as that.Reading can be a big help to a writer, especially a young one. You get an idea of how stories are told so people can relate to them, or how reports are organized so people can follow the reasoning. You can also pick up some tips on style, although that does not happen as often as you'd expect. However, this practice can be overdone. Writing requires a somewhat different skill set than reading, and as I pointed out, it's not very easy to learn style from reading. At some point you have to practice writing and let someone give you feedback on the things that you personally need to learn and practice.another question then: Is punctuation really that important?It depends on the context. In an informal place like this forum, no, it's not critical. Yet... all we know about you is what you write here. Your punctuation can't help but influence what we think of you. As I said before, nobody proofreads their forum messages thoroughly, so we all make a few mistakes and that's OK. But if you make a lot of mistakes and you make the same ones consistently, it becomes part of your communication and it becomes part of what we know about you. You have to decide whether that's the way you want us to see you. It's helpful that you let us know that English is not your first language. I have to admit that your writing is good enough that I thought you were a native speaker. Many of them make far worse errors than you do. So, as someone else said, we are more understanding when we know this is your second language. As I've said, I'm embarrassed when people read my writing in Spanish.

But if you're talking about more serious writing, something you want other people to get excited about, something you want to be persuasive, something you want to get paid for, then the standards are much higher. Even if the readers themselves can't consciously WRITE with good punctuation, proper punctuation makes your writing easier to READ, and makes it more certain that the reader will understand you. Sometimes all it takes is a missing quotation mark or a comma in the wrong place or a lower case letter that should have been capitalized, and it can change the meaning of a whole sentence.Originally posted by eddie monkey
Fraggle, I use the term "I" far too often when writing. How can I avoid this?It's very difficult, you're in a lot of good company.

One way is to make longer sentences. If the first one doesn't start with "I", then concatenating the next one will hide the "I". Of course, everyone tells us to write shorter sentences, so this runs counter to the trend. Personally I'm of the old school and I write longer sentences, but it would be dishonorable to pass that bad habit on.

Pick a phrase from further into the sentence and move it. Instead ofI ran into Suzy in the hardware store yesterdayHow aboutYesterday I ran into Suzy in the hardware storeOrWhile shopping for hardware yesterday, I ran into Suzy.This has the added advantage of not having all of your sentences in exactly the same format, which can become boring.

You might also consider whether the "I" is necessary to the meaning you want to get across. Anything that starts with "I think," "I believe," etc., could be rephrased. "It is reasonable to assume that," "It follows logically that," "Probably," etc.

Give me a few specific examples and we can work on them.

Check this out.... Turned it in for a 117/120... I really spent some time on this baby... really proud. What do you think Fraggle?

Crap, I just set my edited version up as a MS Word document. I forgot that the forum won't accept it. I'll have to put it back into .txt tomorrow night and get it to you then. Sorry! Anyway, I loved your essay and I have read that story.

Attachment here, I hope:

Excellent Thread i must say:D .

Wow....Just wow... I didnt realize that I had that many errors. But now that you have pointed them out to me, I will pay more attention to what I write. And Yes, I was tired a bit doing it.

Thanks for everything! I learned alot reading over it and seeing what you were talking about! And I am a Sophmore (sp?) in High School.

Next essay I write, Ill be sure to send it to you for proof reading. Haha, see what you have gotten yourself into?

I really learned alot from going over that. My writting will definately benefit. THANK YOU!

Later,
Tristan:D

I'd just like to add (I don't know if anyone's said it) that in writing, mathemtics or mathematical symbols should not be used either i.e., 1 should be one and 2 should be two etc. I also think (I doubt that this will be of any use to anyone) that the colon (:) could have come from the mathematical equals sign (=) because it has slmost the same meaning. Maybe we (as a forum) should agree to boycott the colon?! Use i.e.'s instead.

*Walks in circles with banner shouting "BOYCOTT COLON...BOYCOTT COLON".
"COLON OUT...I.E. IN..."* :D