Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Grammar vs style?

Thought that i had to address something else it'd bug me out of my mind. Someone read my post and doubted that i was a real librarian cos i write with incomplete sentences and don't capitalise my "i"s.

Never thought that some people would be so particluar about stuff that is written on a blog, to be honest. i always thought that what make i so great that you constantly have to CAPITALISE I I I all the time.. isn't it a little self pompous? What makes YOU less important that it has to be in small caps?? hee hee hee... anyway... got some really good advice from friends.. and maybe i'd just like to share some tips... as published by by Mark Bernstein on 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web.

An excerpt from point 10:

Relax! Don't worry too much about correctness: Find a voice and use it.
Most readers will overlook, and nearly all will forgive, errors in punctuation and spelling. Leave Fowler and Roget on the shelf, unless they're your old friends. Write clearly and simply and write quickly, for if you are to write often you must neither hesitate or quibble.

Don't worry about the size of your audience. If you write with energy and wit about things that matter, your audience will find you. Do tell people about your writing, through short personal email notes and through postcards and business cards and search engines. Enjoy the audience you have, and don't try to figure out why some people aren't reading your work.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

Do let your work on the Living Web flow from your passion and your play, your work life and your life at home. Establish a rhythm, so your writing comes naturally and your readers experience it as a natural part of their day or their week. But if the rhythm grows onerous, if you find yourself dreading your next update or resenting the demands of your readers, if you no longer relish your morning web routine or your evening note-taking, find a new rhythm or try something else. Change the schedule, or voice, or tone. Switch topics. Try, if you can, to resist the temptation to drop things entirely, to simply stop.

Don't worry about those who disagree with you, and don't take bad reviews to heart. The web is filled with caring and kindness, but thoughtless cruelty can and does cloud every writer's spirit from time to time. Ideas matter, but name-calling doesn't, and petulant critics wrap tomorrow's virtual fish.

In closing, just like to share with you this from Jack Lynch:

Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.

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