On 1/23/2015 5:46 PM, Xeno wrote:
> On 24/01/2015 10:14 AM, Janet Wilder wrote:
>> On 1/23/2015 4:30 PM, Xeno wrote:
>>> On 24/01/2015 7:54 AM, Kalmia wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 3:21:33 PM UTC-5, Bryan-TGWWW wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Certainly, any man's man, any guy who
>>>>> likes movies with car chases and explosions, and who, if they'd been
>>>>> dragged
>>>>> by the wife/GF to see The Fault In Our Stars, and would rather have a
>>>>> root
>>>>> canal than sit through that again would hate it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I would hate to try to diagram that sentence. Kind of fractured,
>>>> huh? IF that's the style of your book...........AAAGGH.
>>>>
>>> I must admit, I would find myself tripping over the fractured grammar
>>> and thus be unable to get immersed in the storyline. I do tutoring for
>>> PhD students and I always get them to break up convoluted sentences like
>>> that. I feel that writers must set standards.
>>>
>>
>> You wouldn't believe some of the convoluted sentences I've had to
>> rewrite as an editor of manuscripts.
>
> Trust me, I would! ;-) At 1:30am this morning I had the joy of editing
> a paragraph that consisted of one single sentence over very many lines.
> It would be impossible to read it out aloud without stumbling over it. I
> will say that my student is of NESB and, as such, does tend to struggle
> with English. She is a lecturer at RMIT Uni and I get to review ALL her
> classwork notes, lesson plans, etc before they get used in her classes.
> As well, I tutored her in her Masters prior to her commencing her PhD. I
> know her style quite well by now but she still persists in writing long
> convoluted sentences no matter how much I try to convince her it's a bad
> idea. Another item that she has trouble with is indefinite articles...
> they seem not to exist in her native language.
>
>> There is, in literature at least, a very fine line that the editor
> > mustn't cross when rewriting an author's work.
>
> I have no problem with that concept at all.. but you can, as a writer,
> at least stick to correct punctuation. Punctuation has a distinct
> purpose and that is to make the document readable and reduce ambiguities.
>
>> It's very hard to maintain the author's voice when you
>> are rewriting a sentence to your own "ear".
>>
> Most of my work has been in the field of technical writing where the
> author's "voice" is much less important than the communication of one's
> ideas in a clear and unambiguous manner. Regardless, punctuation should
> be used correctly, no matter the writing form, in order to let the
> reader's mind flow easily over the text and allow them to focus on the
> content or, as the case may be, the storyline.
>

I agree with you assessment of punctuation.

--
From somewhere very deep in the heart of Texas