I have only been using this site for about a week and do not understand who is allowed to correct writing submitted under the Writing Exchange. Can just anyone submit corrections or are there paid people that do this.? I just read a submission about Aretha Franklin posted by michaelmenglish. The original post was nearly flawless, but a submitted correction made many changes. There are numerous ways of saying the same thing in English. I think that the translation was simply the way that person would have written it, and that the original version was equally correct. It makes me hesitate to submit any writing in the language I am attempting to learn.
The writing exchange is a place where members can correct each other’s writing. More than one person can correct the same piece of writing. I just corrected a French text. I was also able to see the corrections that others made. Wonderful.
This is new. I think it is a great place for people to test their writing, and to test their ability to correct in a language. If I submitted something and the corrector, native or otherwise, made corrections that amounted to another way of saying something, I would consider that valuable too. I encourage people to use this. The more corrections of the same text, the better for the person who submitted it, and, by the way, for the other correctors.
Those members who want a more detailed correction, perhaps even a more reliable correction, should go to the tutor section and ask a specific tutor for correction. The choice is with the learner.
By the way, I just now made my own correction of this text, which in my view improves it. The persons submitting it can draw their own conclusions. Seeing several forms of this text is helpful to all who follow these corrections I believe.
2 Likes
Thanks,
Now I understand how it works and I like your take on it.
"I just read a submission about Aretha Franklin posted by michaelmenglish. The original post was nearly flawless, but a submitted correction made many changes. "
Michaelm wrote the message to introduce himself. He will be shocked to see that his submission has been corrected. Poor old Michael! He should have corrected other members’ submissions instead.
Two people corrected like this:
"Aretha Franklin has passed away today, God Blessbless Herher Soulsoul. She provided the world her language of music and her beautiful voice. "
"Aretha Franklin has passed away today. God Blessbless Herher Soulsoul. She provided the world with her language of music and her beautiful voice. "
- If he wrote the message before the day ended, “has passed away today” is okay. She passed away on August 16th.
- I wonder why he wrote “God Bless Her Soul”. Why did he capitalized G, B, H, and S? Very strange! (Why is this sentence follows a comma?)
- Why did he omit “with” in the phrase “She provided the world with …”? Is he careless in writing?
“Aretha Franklin, whose gospel-rooted singing and bluesy yet expansive delivery earned her the title “the Queen of Soul,” has died, a family statement said Thursday. She was 76.
Franklin died at 9:50 a.m. at her home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends, according to a statement on behalf of Franklin’s family from her longtime publicist Gwendolyn Quinn.”
–CNN
If you are not good at English, you cannot choose competent English tutors. On the other hand, if you are good at English, you might not have to rely on tutors to improve your English.
In my opinion, michaelmenglish is not a competent English tutor. If he were a “professional” English teacher, he would not have made so many mistakes in his posts. (I wonder what his “simple methods techniques” are like. Does “simple methods” modify the noun “techniques”?)