Proofreading

• From: jdinan8271 <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 05:28:59 -0000
• Message-ID: <b1kumr+4rcf_at_...>

   <Note: I'm speaking only for myself, not as a TRASH rep>

   Saturday, I had the opportunity to moderate at GW's JCV tournament 
in Washington, DC.  Overall, I had a blast.  It was great to meet up 
with old friends once again, and it was nice to see several new faces 
and teams make the trek to Foggy Bottom to play.

    If I have to make a criticism as a moderator/cranky old man, it 
has to do with the packets.  Not the quality or difficulty levels of 
the packets, mind you, but the complete lack of proofreading I saw in 
several of the mirrored packets I read.

    There were numerous instances of questions missing words.  
Several more had misspellings missed by SpellCheck, but which would 
have been found with the human eye.  A few questions had sentences 
that appeared to be written by a four-year-old - thanks to a 
combination of the two above proofreading no-no's.  And don't get me 
started with the grammatical errors, as well as the packet with 19 
tossups.

    In the real world, I am employed as a writer.  If I wrote a 
story, a press release or memo like several of the packets I read 
Saturday, I would be out of a job.

    Proofreading is not pulling teeth.  Before you submit a packet to 
a tournament director, make sure you go through it with a fine-tooth 
comb and fix spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and the like.  
Tournament directors - do the same when you receive a packet.  If you 
find too many spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and the like in 
the packet, tell its author(s) to fix it immediately or face being 
disqualified from the tournament.

    James Dinan
    jdinan_at_...