Comments on: How to Avoid Stylistic Errors in Blog Posts

By: HAlim

HAlim — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:30:20 +0000

Before:

My writing skills also not good enough, to check my grammar I using some software to check the mistake.

After:

My writing skills also not good enough, to check my grammar, I was using some software to check the mistake.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:55:09 +0000

An interesting article with some interesting points. However, it seems that you wrote this under the pretense that people actually want to have perfect grammar in their posts. I certainly don't in mine! I liked your suggestion to imagine the reader is right in front of you; generally I write in that style, as if I were speaking to a friend. When I speak to a friend though, I use slang, I use sloppy English, and I don't think twice about it. While I agree with the majority of your points, I think that while one should be aware of grammatical rules, they shouldn't allow their writing style to be a slave to them. You mention this in your third recommendation, to which I would like to offer an addition: Have a clear idea of what you want to communicate, and try to make your posts 'flow'. If you're unsure if your writing is difficult to read, have someone proofread it for you, or read it aloud. People often omit words during the typing process, and your mind simply fills in the blanks as you read it back to yourself in your head. It's not a 100% foolproof way to catch these errors, but it's something.

At the end of the day, bloggers should just write the way they feel most comfortable. Do I write using the passive voice? Sure, all the time! Do I care? Nope! Then again, I'm not trying to make money from blogging, I'm not trying to get published in academic journals, heck, I'm not even writing to Penthouse Forum. I wish I had an excuse to do the latter though…

BTW, there's an error in your article. Perhaps you put it in on purpose though, you sly dog!

By: XLOR

XLOR — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:49:32 +0000

Didn't read yet, I meant)))

By: XLOR

XLOR — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:47:55 +0000

Thanks for an English grammar lesson.

Didn't read till the end but it was interesting for the person for whom English language is not native.

By: Joe Cavell

Joe Cavell — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:34:57 +0000

Wow! I feel like I just went through elementary school english class. You have a great way of describing correct grammer and I like the examples you use. I will be checking out some of the links you suggest.

By: Megapixels

Megapixels — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:39:37 +0000

Woah . . . just had a wicked flash back to English class. Good tips though. The "picture your reader sitting in front of you" is a good visualization. It is important, to keep a good reference like that while your writing. It does set the tone for your post.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:48:27 +0000

I recently found this page on Google and decided to bookmark it so I could provide this link. If there was ever a book to help with grammar The King's English by H. W. Fowler is the best I've ever read, aside from the lack of a PDF format. It's very intensive, but definitely worth the read if you can get into it. Still, most of us are prone to occasionally severe grammatical errors. I've always found that reading over a post before it's submitted is probably the best bet to finding these errors.

By: Breakaway

Breakaway — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:34:48 +0000

I give up on bloggers trying to learn these basic concepts…. it's sad. I use slang in my posts only because I am lazy, but not knowing the difference between they're their and there bugs me.

Hopefully some people out there, COUGH infectedbybugs.com COUGH will learn the differences…..