{"id":14451,"date":"2017-02-23T17:15:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=14451"},"modified":"2017-04-05T21:59:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T04:59:50","slug":"proofreading-in-the-electronic-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2017\/02\/23\/proofreading-in-the-electronic-age\/","title":{"rendered":"proofreading in the electronic age"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read a lot of blogs. Most of them actually don’t really count as ‘blogs’ anymore. They’re more like mini news outlets. They’re essential, often covering niche subjects that the print media (if they even exist in a given community) can’t or won’t cover due to costs and assigning coverage based upon demographic respones\u00a0(i.e. clickbait). Being a Portland resident, I’m into craft beer, and one of my go-to blogs is The New School<\/a>. They provide an amazing service to the craft beer industry and consumers in Oregon and Washington. That being said, they desperately need a copy editor. This is what I encountered when I read their article on the new Breakside Brewing location in Slabtown:<\/p>\n

\"nsbeer\"<\/p>\n

‘They’re’ is used instead of the correct ‘their’. It’s a small thing – but they’re<\/em> is a contraction of they<\/em> and are<\/em>. It’s not a possessive, which their<\/em> is. My guess is that most (I see mistakes like this all over, even with some of the largest and most respected blogs) blog contributors\u00a0are using a spell-checker and nothing else. The word is spelled correctly, and it is a homophone of the correct word, so it passes the (presumed) proof-reading pass before the post is published. I’m assuming that The New School has an editor of some sort.<\/del>\u00a0It looks like they do not, however. They seem to have a decentralized system of contributors. I sense that a lot of blogs operate in this way. One that does not: Oregon Arts Watch<\/a>. I may quibble with some of their editorial stances, but they\u00a0have<\/em> editors, which I know from first-hand knowledge. I’ve been a periodic contributor to OAW, and Brett Campbell did an ace job of not only editing for\u00a0grammar, but in making my piece (through pointed questions and suggestions) flow better and have a more cogent point of view.<\/p>\n

I know that I’m being a\u00a0nudge<\/em>, maybe even a\u00a0 nudnik<\/em>. No one likes a know-it-all, least of all me! I’m also a far-from-perfect writer! There have been many occasions\u00a0when I’ve hit “Publish” and then my fianc\u00e9e’s eagle eye spots a typo that I had missed. Grr! What we write, however, and how we write it makes an immediate impression on the reader. Having a blatant grammatical error in the first paragraph of your post isn’t the way to inspire a\u00a0reader’s confidence in what follows (and making matters worse in the example above, the lede containing\u00a0the error was used as the\u00a0subheader\u00a0in the headline slider at the top\u00a0of the blog).\u00a0Don’t we, as bloggers, owe it to our readers to give them well-written posts? With the availability of online proofreading services such as Grammarly<\/a> and Ginger<\/a>, one needn’t go to the expense of hiring a professional copy editor or proofreader (though I’d argue that this would be well worth the expense for serious content-producing blogs).\u00a0Anyway, I’ve been stewing over this for quite some time, and apologies for the ambush to the otherwise excellent The New School – you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time! I’ll keep coming back and will continue to recommend your site to my other beer-minded friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a lot of blogs. Most of them actually don’t really count as ‘blogs’ anymore. They’re more like mini news outlets. They’re essential, often covering niche subjects that the print media (if they even exist in a given community) can’t or won’t cover due to costs and assigning coverage based upon demographic respones\u00a0(i.e. clickbait). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloggers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3L5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/01\/03\/acoustics-can-you-hear-me-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":0},"title":"Acoustics – can you hear me now?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A good article on acoustics for the audience, and how, even in a great hall, where you sit can make a huge difference in what you hear. For example - in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall here in Portland, you spend the most money for the Dress Circle seats, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7750,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/25\/pushing-through-to-the-other-side\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":1},"title":"pushing through (to the other side)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm approaching my 44th birthday (!), and I'm finding that a lot of my friends both a bit older and a bit younger than I are all struggling (for the most part) with finding a renewed sense of meaning in their work as musicians, artists, and human beings. I'm no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1197,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/01\/orchestral-blogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":2},"title":"orchestral blogs","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I write one of the few blogs independently-penned by an orchestra member, and I'm not sure why it's such a lonely job description.\u00c2\u00a0 However, a rapidly expanding area of classical music blogs are blogs that are written as part of a symphony orchestra's public relations and\/or artistic arms.\u00c2\u00a0 Here's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/ssoblog-400x105.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":608,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/26\/daily-obs-makes-top-50-classical-music-blogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":3},"title":"daily obs makes top-50 classical music blogs","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm happy to announce that this blog has made the list of top-50 blogs (by Google's count) on classical music (#40 to be exact).\u00c2\u00a0 Thanks for reading - and linking! See the complete list here.","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":145,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/21\/watch-out-for-that-first-step\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":4},"title":"watch out for that first step…","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Just caught the first salvos of blogosphere responses to the Oregonian interview with Elaine Calder, the consultant hired by the Oregon Symphony. The responses so far are not good, and how could they be, given the headline presented in the Playbill Arts story on the interview: Consultant Suggests Oregon Symphony\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":216,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/02\/20\/216\/","url_meta":{"origin":14451,"position":5},"title":"practicing, why bother?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I went to the home of a wonderful local pianist who is accompanying a student of mine for the district solo contest. The pianist is a veteran of the concert stage and has played just about everything written for violin, viola and cello (with piano) over the years. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}