writing
Would you work for free?
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 | Technical writing, consumer culture, content, websites, writing | No Comments
I recently corresponded with Company X regarding a job writing game reviews.
Game reviews are not my normal venue, but what the heck; I like gaming, I like writing and it seemed like a fun way to make some extra cash occasionally (plus, a cool addition to my portfolio).
So I sent an email in with my details and some questions and received the standard response asking for a sample review. It was this part of the response that concerned me:
“Submitted articles become the property of Company X.com, Inc. and may at some time be published in its submitted form or altered by Company X.com, Inc and subsequently published at some later date.”
The “submitted articles” are actually the writing samples they require to make a hiring decision. In other words, you send them a sample review written to specification based on an actual game and they get to keep it, alter it, and use it whether they hire you or not. Bonus for them, they don’t have to give the writer credit or pay them.
I emailed to confirm this interpretation and got the following reply:
“That is correct”
That was the entire reply – no lead-in or sign-off.
I replied that most places requiring samples asked for mock-samples but in the cases where proper samples were required that there was usually something in place to ensure the sample would never be used without full permission of and recognition to the author.
This was the reply I received:
“Thanks for your comments, however, that is our policy. The choice is in the hands of potential freelance candidates whether to submit their sample or not.”
Admittedly, he’s got a point. Anyone reading that ‘policy’ can always make the choice to not work for free. They can choose to write for a company that does not use ill-gotten content.
I was still a little appalled at how much they devalue writers – as though writing isn’t an actual occupation or, for some of us, the only thing we want to do for a living. If you write for a company, you should get paid a fair and decent wage for it – not find it published in an altered form where you get no credit.
Writing for free doesn’t pay the bills – so always read the fine print and ask questions!
Why “Me Too” Blogging Can Be Useful
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | blogging, content, education, websites, writing | 2 Comments
I checked in with Twitter this morning to see what was new and noticed Justin Whitaker’s Tweet saying that he’d received his first nasty comment on his blog.
That made me curious so I went to his blog and found a post about “me too” blogging.
Justin is of the opinion that blogging is “incestuous” and that most bloggers “treat other blogs [as] grist for their own mill, as mere sounding boards for their own work”.
I agree that much of the content on blogs seems repetitive – and often these repetitive posts offer no new insights or information whatsoever. I’m not sure anyone could argue that all blog content is fresh and original.
However, I agree with Michael Durwin’s comment on Justin’s post that “me too” blogging does serve a purpose. “Me Too” blogging provides more access to content that is useful and relevant to people who might not see it otherwise:
I too often forget that most people in the world aren’t as tech savvy as those I talk to everyday. I talked to a recruiter the other day who wasn’t on Facebook because: “isn’t that site just for college kids?”. So before you accuse bloggers of writing “me too” posts to drive traffic, or to just regurgitate what other have already said, consider that not everyone has read all of those other blogs that you have. I live in Boston, arguably one of the most high tech cities in the US, home to countless colleges. I have 3 family members in college. I regularly speak at my alma mater. You’d be SHOCKED to know how few use Flickr, Facebook, or even know how to use Google.
It would be great if everyone could write new and fascinating content, but can’t blogging be a sort of conversation? You write something and I say, “I agree with that (me too!) and here’s my version and why I agree.” Does it matter that I’m “playing the blogging game” without bringing an “original voice to advance the discussion”?
I don’t think so.
If I were talking to someone in real life over coffee and I agreed with something they said and wanted to pass it along, would it be OK for them to say: “You’re not adding value to this discussion – you should stop talking.”
Again, I don’t think so.
A blog post has value if someone reads it and gets something out of it – who cares if 400 other people wrote about the same thing and hold the same opinion. The point is that the reader saw it and it was useful. It doesn’t matter if the other 399 blogs have the same information because the reader didn’t go there (and now doesn’t need to).
Justin suggests making a “concerted effort to kill “Me Too” blogging” in 2009 – I think our efforts would be better spent on making those “Me Too” posts well-written so that wherever a reader’s travels through the blogosphere lead – they lead to intelligent writing.
As a point of interest, Google “me too blogging” – there are lots of posts about this (including Justin’s), but since Justin’s post was the first one I came across, I stopped there.
Should we abandon spelling rules?
Friday, September 19th, 2008 | Technical writing, education, writing | No Comments
John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London and president of the Spelling Society believes we should consider “freeing up” the English language because spelling English words is a burden to children according to a recent article in the Times Online.
I’m still uncertain of whether I think this article is insane or not.
English is a difficult language to learn for non-English speakers certainly, and there are many finicky rules and regulations regarding the correct spelling of words to better communicate their meaning.
If we choose to adopt John Wells suggestions, what might that mean for technical writers?
Assuming we could decide on whose pronunciation of English to follow – so that phonetic spellings made some sense – what might happen to help files in software?
The next time I look up how to do a mail merge in MS Word, will it look like this:
“Creeating eech letter, email message, or envelope individually would take hours. That’s wher mail merje comes in. Using mail merje, all u have to do is creeate one document that contains th information that is th same in eech copy, and add som placeholders for th information that is uneek to eech copy. Word takes care of th rest.”
That’s not impossible to read – but only because I edited it to read that way. If I were looking this up to skim it for some basic information like most users do, I think I would have a hard time of it. I’d have to read the whole paragraph to understand the ideas in it and that’s not something users like doing.
Reading an entire paragraph may not sound like a lot of work, but what about five paragraphs? If I can’t skim all five paragraphs, I’ll probably decide it’s too much work to read everything thoroughly with this new and perhaps unstable way of spelling things and I’ll simply fumble my way through the mail merge unaided.
I suppose I should take comfort that John Wells isn’t suggesting we write in text message English which might read like this:
“Creating ea. ltr, email msg, or envelope ind. would take hrs. Thats wher mail merge cumz in. Using mail merge, all u have 2 do is create 1 doc that contains th info that is th same in ea. cpy, and add sum placeholders for th info that is uniq. to ea. copy. Word takes care of th rest.”
It still gives the user the right information, but reading over it even now makes my eyes stutter. I have to re-read everything to be sure I really understood the message.
Perhaps it’s only that my brain is used to processing words spelled out “correctly” and in full – those words are words my brain can get through quickly without compromising the meaning or value of them.
I feel a little resistant to the idea of changing spelling to make it easier – but only because I’m used to the way we spell things now. If relaxed spelling and grammar rules make it easier for young people and ESL students to learn and communicate successfully in English, perhaps this is an idea worth considering.
Abandoning the current rules of spelling and grammar seems daunting, but I really like the possibility of making writing more accessible to people – assuming that adopting the new rules would actually accomplish this.