Questions, questions, questions

[Redlass]

Time to baptize this forum. It pains me to see "NEVER" everytime I open the main board.

So, since I haven't time at the moment to write a "That Ain't Write" entry, I'll thow out a couple questions instead.

1. What is your biggest pet peeve in other people's writing?
2. What is your biggest pet peeve with your own writing?
3. Do you have a favorite book/Web site/resource that you use when writing? If yes, what is it?

[Joubert[$]]

Inaccuracies bother me most as a reader, particularly if the subject is easy to research. As for my own writing, I'm never happy with my transitions. I tend to edit with a meat cleaver and find myself wishing my words would glide rather than clump along.

I don't really use a single source when writing, but will use Merriam-Webster's online dictionary to check myself. Beyond that, I make sure to use subject-specific sites for research. In music, that's the RIAA, Billboard, Rolling Stone and Allmusic.com. For cars, I use Edmunds, Car Point and the manufacturers. And so on.

[hypotenuse]

Originally posted by joubert
As for my own writing, I'm never happy with my transitions. I tend to edit with a meat cleaver and find myself wishing my words would glide rather than clump along.

While I'm always very happy with joubert's transitions, my own are lacking in a extremely obvious kind of way.

Perhaps this would make a good subject for a That Aint Write?

Transitions for dummies.... Now THAT's a title.



Lynne

[GasJocket214]

I hate it when people plagerize other peoples work.

[soxfan[$]]

1. Biggest pet peeve in others' writing: rampant misspellings. A typo here or there is perfectly fine - a little pebble in the road, doesn't slow you down a bit. Misspelling every other word, though, makes for huge prose potholes.

2. Biggest pet peeve in my writing: long, drawn-out, when-the-heck-is-she-going-to-end-this phrases. I'm very, very guilty of parens/ellipsis/dash abuse.

3. Favorite book/website/resource: for spelling, my worn-out edition of the American Heritage dictionary; for movie info, the Internet Movie Database.

Ailsa

[monssfisch]

1. In other peoples' writing: I don't like plagiarism, or bad spelling (there really is no excuse), but the main thing that bothers me is when writers who would usually get a VH for their review don't space out their work and use paragraphs. It makes it so much harder to read and as a result, isn't much fun.

2. In my own: I have serious adjective shortcomings. Look at my early reviews; every song I like is 'great', and every song I dislike is 'terrible'. I've tried to remedy this, but it's still tough. I've tried to ration myself to 2 'greats' per review now.

3. For spelling, I just shove it in MS Word. For music info, I think music.yahoo.com is pretty comprehensive. For more specific info, I use a bunch of other sites, including www.punkrocks.net and www.fourfa.com.

[pageclot[$]]

My biggest pet peeve for other people's writing?

Impoliteness, in all its myriad forms. In comments or opinions.

My biggest pet peeve for my own writing?

That I have homogenized my writing to the point of boredom. I would love to write a calm, elegant sentence that flows into the next like a stream to a river, a river to the sea. You know, sentences like Urbanist's or niccy6's.

I suffer from "Gotta get it out" disease, where if I'm close to being finished, I'll bind it together with some twine I have handy and press Submit. Often I don't like to look at what I've written for days after I've submitted.

Tools I use when writing:

dictionary.com for word choice.
imdb.com for movie information.
google for general knowledge.

pageclot

[KateTPZ]

1. What is your biggest pet peeve in other people's writing? Misuse of to or too, there, their or they're, misuse of it's, and internet slang (like "LOL!") in a product review.

2. What is your biggest pet peeve with your own writing? My vocabulary is not developed enough - making some of my writing very flat. I also have a hard time calling something "done" - I could edit and re-edit and edit again endlessly and still not be satisfied.

3. Do you have a favorite book/Web site/resource that you use when writing? If yes, what is it? My worn out dictionary (American Heritage) and Roget's Thesaurus, google.com or AskJeeves.com for topic-specific research.

[jenninca]

1. All the things others have said--plagiarism, bad spelling, etc. bother me, too. Another kind of silly thing that bothers me is when people overuse the bold and italics tags. You know, they use them to make every other sentence look different instead of using them for emphasis. To me, it just makes the review look cluttered and unorganized. It sounds stupid, but there's a couple of people I've stopped reading because their reviews just seem to be screaming at me.

2. In my own writing... I tend to overuse the same sentence patterns. I try to catch a lot of it before I submit, but it's darn hard! I also have the worst time coming up with titles and bottom lines.

3. I don't really use many resources when writing, other than the product I'm reviewing. I was one of those lucky people who was practically born knowing how to spell. I never studied for a spelling test in my life. I've also gotten perfect scores on three different standardized English/Writing tests (really, I'm not trying to brag) and tested out of all the required English in college.

Cindy

[pluckyduck]

This is fun!

1) My biggest pet peeve in other people's writing - things that are overwritten. I would rather read a less well constructed piece that comes from someone's heart, than a "beautiful piece of prose" that is really just a bunch of words someone put together "cleverly". Writing is just a medium for communication and not an end to itself, at least from my point of view. Overwritten pieces feel like someone talking just to talk and not to talk to me.

I'm not just referring to Epinions writing here; there are many, many professional writers I won't read because they are too stuck on their own words.

2) My writing??? Oh, where do I start? I'll start with Ailsa's

2. Biggest pet peeve in my writing: long, drawn-out, when-the-heck-is-she-going-to-end-this phrases. I'm very, very guilty of parens/ellipsis/dash abuse.

Amen! Preach it sister! Ding! Ding! Ding! That is my number one pet peeve about my own writing, but I can't seem to change it.

I also overuse! exclamation! points! And "quote" "marks". I've told DH to hit me over the head if he ever sees me start to make quote marks in the air when I am talking. I've caught myself doing it a few times....yeah, I need that bad habit to leak over to my speech too.

I misplace my modifiers all of the time....and I tend to use too many trite expressions. Unlike my high school English teachers, I don't think it is wrong to use trite expressions; I think that a common expression can help communicate to the reader. It's bad though, if you use too many of them, and it's really bad when you mix your metaphors. (I mix my metaphors all of the time.)


3) Resources - I'm big on doing research before I write anything, for Epinions or for stuff for work. I use google so much I actually downloaded their browser bar for my computer at work. I'm sure google is keeping a record of every site I visit but since it is my work computer I don't really care.

I Ask Jeeves a bit too, but not as much lately. They started putting those really annoying pop up box things on the site and I hate pop up boxes.

A lot of people don't know about NorthernLight. That's an excellent research resource for anything business related.

Of course, Britannica.com and dictionary.com are pretty standard.

Andrea
who hasn't noticed Ailsa's paren/elipsis/dash/dot/hyphen/phrases-that-don't end problem, maybe nobody has noticed hers!

[AshleyA[$]]

1) What bugs me about other people's writing are blatant spelling errors as well as misuse of common words.

2) For my writing?? Oh goodness.

I feel that my vocabulary is seriously underdeveloped. I'm trying to remedy that by reading more and keeping a dictionary in my lap when I do. Either that, or I jot down the words I need to look up on my bookmark.

I am a guilty quotation and parenthesis user, and I hit myself over the head when I overlook grammatical and spelling errors in my own work.

I also don't think I'm all that humorous, but I don't take myself too seriously as a writer. It's just something I like to do in my spare time.

3) My reference materials are my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Dictionary.com and M-W.com for those times when I don't have access to the bound copy. I also use Yahoo and Google for research resources.

Ashley

[Social14]

1) I hate when people write a lot of nonsence, or go on and on about how they love something without telling me much about it.

2) I often find myself writing all my reviews in a simillar fashion. I am stick in a rut, and can not get out! I have 3 or4 formats I have found to work for me, and that is pretty much all I use. Gotta break that habit!!

3) I usually turn to my Microsoft Word to figure out how to correctly spell a word...or I think of another word that means the same thing

~Wendy

[purplewiz]

- In other people's writing:

Many people have touched on the spacing between paragraphs, piles of misspellings, incorrect use of their/there/they're, to/too/two, its/it's....all of which bug the bejeezus out of me. The worst for me, though, is the repeated misspelling of the product's or service's or location's name.

- In my own writing:

I suppose I can't just say everything . But my inability to write a cogent, clear conclusion annoys me the most. I have never been able to wrap things up well; I'm hoping I'll get better at it with practice.

- Tools:

Like others have mentioned, I rely on search engines, specifically google, very heavily. It's one of the things I love most about the web; it's like having my own private research library in my own home.

The other resource is kind of informal - it's the player base on the MUSH I play on. If I'm stumped on a question, or my searches are coming up with nothing, I can usually throw the question out there, and someone will come up with something. (I'd give an example here, but I don't know if mentioning an epinion obliquely is against board rules.) It ends up being a group information collective.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

1. Other people's writing: Plot descriptions in book and movie reviews that go on too long or that give too much away.

2. My writing: The paren/dash abuse thing. The adjective thing -- especially when writing about food, I have problems with this. I draw a blank, and end up just writing "it tasted great" or "it was fantastic," which makes me wince. Overuse of the word "thing" (see previous two sentences) and "stuff" and other verbal tics -- I can hardly get through a sentence without using "anyway" or "actually" or "really." Really!

3. Resources: I'm totally jazzed about a word processing program I got a few weeks ago called "Yeah Write!" I was planning on reviewing it on EP, but you know how that goes, so I'll just say check it out. It's a free download. I forget the URL, but you can find it easily enough on google (google itself being another essential I join in with everybody in praising). My latest favorite online resource is http://www.allwords.com , which is the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Also http://www.bartleby.com , which has a whole collection of different kinds of reference books that you can search simultaneously.

[pluckyduck]

Originally posted by AuntieEmma


2. My writing: The paren/dash abuse thing. The adjective thing -- especially when writing about food, I have problems with this. I draw a blank, and end up just writing "it tasted great" or "it was fantastic," which makes me wince. Overuse of the word "thing" (see previous two sentences) and "stuff" and other verbal tics -- I can hardly get through a sentence without using "anyway" or "actually" or "really." Really!

Actually, I find that my stuff has the same problem. Anyway, the adjective thing can really be a problem. My running joke at work is about the words "useful" and "handy". Seems near every product description I write for the billion and a half items we sell is for something that is "useful", "handy" or a "good value" -- and of course it is "lovely" or "stunning".

I think I have to go throw up now. Really.

Andrea

[mt_man_77]

Hello Everyone!

Great questions...

Here are my answers...


1) I dislike it when other epinioneers misspell or structure their sentences incorrectly. Obviously plagerism is a big no-no! I enjoy writers that give a sense of personality to their work.

2) My lack of humor can be a drawback sometimes.

3) I use my dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedias and various internet search engines.


Take care!

~ Tim
mt_man_77

[rich2003dm]

1) I hate it when some semi-literate buffoon writes one of those essays that say essentially "I'm a great writer. If you want to be a great writer like me..."

Sometimes I can hardly keep myself from sending a comment like "YOU STINK! YOUR STUFF IS GARBAGE! YUCK!"

2) No problem there. You see, I'm a great writer. By the way, If you want to be a great writer like me...

3) dictionary and thesaurus and spell check, spell check, and more spell check.

4) I know there isn't any four, but I have to 'fess up to my real reason for posting this. I just wanted to see if my signature stuff would show up. I just read Sandy's advice to somebody on how to do it. I never knew how. What a jerk I am!

Rich

[Redlass]

I just realized I hadn't answered my own questions (bad habit of mine). I pulled up this thread to look for potential topics to discuss here and realized my oversight. So...

1. What is your biggest pet peeve in other people's writing?

It depends on the day. At the moment, my biggest pet peeve is writing stuffed full of fillers and plastered with large words in an attempt to hide a lack of knowledge or understanding. I rarely see it at Epinions. I see it often at work.

Along those same lines, I get annoyed at seeing the same pet phrases and cliches used to the point where they have no meaning. Paradigm is a great word that has been bled of any real power. Everything needs to be done in an "effective and efficient manner" and the start of every textbook chapter in the world has an intro saying that the topic of that chapter "is critical."


2. What is your biggest pet peeve with your own writing?

A lack of succinctness. I use too many words and water down what I'm trying to say. I also use too many cliches and tired phrases (the very thing I dislike in other people's writing).

3. Do you have a favorite book/Web site/resource that you use when writing? If yes, what is it?

Several!

My absolute favorites that I use most frequently are:

• Words on Words by John Bremner
• The Bias-Free Word Finder: a Dictionary by Rosalie Maggio
• The Associated Press Style Guide and Libel Manual
• American Usage and Style: The Consensus by Roy Copperud

[magenta321]

1. I hate people who only give one or five stars for every product.

I hate it when people give away the ending to the movie.

I hate misspellings, gigantic gramatical errors, and people who are repeditively redundant

2. My biggest problem is with pronouns. If I am talking in a non-gender specifc mannor, everything becomes "they," even when I am speaking about a singular person. For example "When a reader reads my review, they will notice my misuse of pronouns." ACK! I didn't even know that was wrong until I was in college!

3. I use the dictionary, thesaurus, MLA, google, and even Epinions itself (as in, I want to compare this movie to that movie... but what who was the star in that movie anyway?)