The Challenges of Creative and Innovative Minds With Tedious Editing
Have you ever read any e-mail that you got from someone online, and perhaps, you knew that individual to be quite intelligent, and yet, their e-mail was so riddled with errors, and misspellings you wondered if they were drunk when they wrote it, or perhaps you are viewing the real person behind the spellchecker.
This makes you stop and think, perhaps reevaluate the individual as one with intelligence, or one who is merely wearing the suit and tie and looking the part.
The reality is that we as a society judge people by how they write, regardless of their level of competency in their other endeavors.
Some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of all time have some of the most atrocious writing that I've ever seen in my life.
Indeed, as I look back on my own writing, I realize why I got a D+ in journalism in junior high, the worst grade I had ever received.
The fact is I deserved it, and I never really liked writing since.
Even as I look back 10 years ago, my writing truly sucked, today it's just barely passable for someone who might claim to be a writer.
There was an interesting article recently which told of a research paper about Wikipedia, and how it is inundated with misspellings, punctuation errors, and poor editing choices to say the least - the researcher's conclusion was that it was a sign of the times, and perhaps a reason why you can't trust the information there.
Jon Stacey analyzed this and titled his blog post; "Text Mining Wikipedia for Misspelled Words," which he published on December 23, 2011.
Slashdot has this to say about Stacey's findings: "The crowd-sourced nature of Wikipedia might imply that its content should be more 'correct' than other sources.
As the saying goes, the more eyes the better.
One particular student who was curious about this conducted rudimentary text mining on a sampling of the Wikipedia corpus to discover how misspelling rates on Wikipedia change and increase through time.
Stacey proposes that this consistent increase is the result of Wikipedia contributors using more complex language, which the test is unable to cope with.
" Yes, this is one factor, and the other may be that there are more folks coming online, folks with not a lot of college level education, unable to write well, but that doesn't mean they may not have something legitimate to contribute.
And, well, I guess, I'd hold off on reaching his same conclusions, and let me explain why.
The other day, someone read one of my Ebooks and appreciated my new concepts and innovative ideas.
I said; thanks, I get a couple of original thoughts a day, so, I've tried to create scenarios where I can shove in a bunch of ideas into a category, even if all the technology blurs.
And with 25,000 articles online now, I think I am burying some of the best stuff, meanwhile I can't turn off my mind.
Of course, his compliment came with a caveat; he didn't want to show his better half because she'd be contacting me over all the slight spelling errors, etc, as she has abundant editing skills.
Well, I thought, I certainly cannot deny it, my work is NOT perfect, however, my output is so great, and I just don't have the time to edit perfectly.
Is that an excuse? Perhaps, but it is a real legitimate choice that I've made, trading speed for accuracy so I don't lose my train of thought - it's what works for me.
Indeed, that eBook in question, and realize there are now 111 of them as of this article, was a 36 hour project with some old articles stuck in the back.
You see, it takes longer to edit than to write it and think it.
So, yes, I hope he doesn't show it to his wife, and of course, you know, I did thank him for reading through my sentence structure, and spelling errors.
I am not a writer, I am an entrepreneur.
Likewise, with the case of Wikipedia, many of the contributors are not college English majors, they are humans living in the real world.
Are they botching the English Language, or is this part of how culture modifies the language over time, thus, normal, but now seen in real time, on the Wikipedia platform? Please consider all this.
This makes you stop and think, perhaps reevaluate the individual as one with intelligence, or one who is merely wearing the suit and tie and looking the part.
The reality is that we as a society judge people by how they write, regardless of their level of competency in their other endeavors.
Some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of all time have some of the most atrocious writing that I've ever seen in my life.
Indeed, as I look back on my own writing, I realize why I got a D+ in journalism in junior high, the worst grade I had ever received.
The fact is I deserved it, and I never really liked writing since.
Even as I look back 10 years ago, my writing truly sucked, today it's just barely passable for someone who might claim to be a writer.
There was an interesting article recently which told of a research paper about Wikipedia, and how it is inundated with misspellings, punctuation errors, and poor editing choices to say the least - the researcher's conclusion was that it was a sign of the times, and perhaps a reason why you can't trust the information there.
Jon Stacey analyzed this and titled his blog post; "Text Mining Wikipedia for Misspelled Words," which he published on December 23, 2011.
Slashdot has this to say about Stacey's findings: "The crowd-sourced nature of Wikipedia might imply that its content should be more 'correct' than other sources.
As the saying goes, the more eyes the better.
One particular student who was curious about this conducted rudimentary text mining on a sampling of the Wikipedia corpus to discover how misspelling rates on Wikipedia change and increase through time.
Stacey proposes that this consistent increase is the result of Wikipedia contributors using more complex language, which the test is unable to cope with.
" Yes, this is one factor, and the other may be that there are more folks coming online, folks with not a lot of college level education, unable to write well, but that doesn't mean they may not have something legitimate to contribute.
And, well, I guess, I'd hold off on reaching his same conclusions, and let me explain why.
The other day, someone read one of my Ebooks and appreciated my new concepts and innovative ideas.
I said; thanks, I get a couple of original thoughts a day, so, I've tried to create scenarios where I can shove in a bunch of ideas into a category, even if all the technology blurs.
And with 25,000 articles online now, I think I am burying some of the best stuff, meanwhile I can't turn off my mind.
Of course, his compliment came with a caveat; he didn't want to show his better half because she'd be contacting me over all the slight spelling errors, etc, as she has abundant editing skills.
Well, I thought, I certainly cannot deny it, my work is NOT perfect, however, my output is so great, and I just don't have the time to edit perfectly.
Is that an excuse? Perhaps, but it is a real legitimate choice that I've made, trading speed for accuracy so I don't lose my train of thought - it's what works for me.
Indeed, that eBook in question, and realize there are now 111 of them as of this article, was a 36 hour project with some old articles stuck in the back.
You see, it takes longer to edit than to write it and think it.
So, yes, I hope he doesn't show it to his wife, and of course, you know, I did thank him for reading through my sentence structure, and spelling errors.
I am not a writer, I am an entrepreneur.
Likewise, with the case of Wikipedia, many of the contributors are not college English majors, they are humans living in the real world.
Are they botching the English Language, or is this part of how culture modifies the language over time, thus, normal, but now seen in real time, on the Wikipedia platform? Please consider all this.