This morning's Dear Abby advice column carries a letter from an English teacher in Austin, TX who observes that she never notices grammar and punctuation errors in letters to Dear Abby. The teacher asks, "Are the letters you publish revised, or are only the most literate and conscientious people moved to write to you?"
Abby responds that all of her readers are "conscientious" but that she and her staff try to correct errors before letters appear in print. I loved her answer about WHY:
"To perpetuate the errors by printing them would set a bad example or distract from the question being presented."
I hope all of you will take this advice to heart. You want your reader to remember WHAT you wrote, not the weird way you wrote it! So, make your goal for today to set a good example by writing clearly and well.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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