Wounded self-esteem

[mme_hardy]

I decided to sign up for Textbroker, a service that commissions you -- at ridiculously low rates -- to produce web articles. rates. I took their writing evaluation test. It scored me at 3 out of 5 stars. (Note: I proofread the sample a lot more carefully than I proofread DW posts. I also wasn't on migraine drugs that day.) The way to correct a bad rating is to take their writing course. The course is free, so my first suspicion of a scam was incorrect.

Here's a snippet from the course.

Repetition is a sure way to lose a reader’s interest. Repetition happens on a small scale when authors favor certain words. An article can sound very monotonous when every sentence begins with “moreover.” If you can’t think of a good word to replace the one you’ve used twice already, use a thesaurus! Do an Internet search for synonyms of your word, and you’ll be one step further from the fluff. Repetition can be seen on a larger scale when entire articles are comprised of similarly structured sentences. This is most likely to happen with very simple sentences that take on a “Dick and Jane” style. An article that uses the same sentence formula many times can seem repetitive to a reader even with varied word choice, such as “I went to the aquarium. Natalie was there. We got smoothies. It was thrilling.” It is easy to avoid this by mixing up the order of your sentences or combining some main ideas.

O.... kay. Suddenly I trust my skills again. Incidentally, note how choppy the previous para is. The thesaurus advice ... I can't even.

Edit: The full article; don't know if it's behind the membership wall.

Comments

[kore]

'Do an Internet search for synonyms of your word, and you’ll be one step further from the fluff.'

....//just cries

[caulkhead]

If you can’t think of a good word to replace the one you’ve used twice already, use a thesaurus! Do an Internet search for synonyms of your word, and you’ll be one step further from the fluff.

Dear God, NO.

I have a horrible feeling some of my authors may have read this paragraph and taken it to heart.

[shezan]

She said, he mumbled, she expostulated, he spat, she whispered, he argued, she retorted, he pronounced....

[nestra]

I've done some writing stuff for them. They didn't accept me as an editor (twice) because I supposedly didn't have the experience.

[mme_hardy]

Right. These are crazy people.

[legionseagle]

I was, by a side-wind, reminded of Enspiren Press, which swept through an online critique group like whooping cough through an anti-vaxxers convention. I went looking for any trace on-line of the blessedly bizarre set-up and came across this: The Novelists Guide to Showing and Narration (punctuation presented without comment) which bills itself as

The Ultimate Guide to Showing Using Narration and POV to Eliminate Passive Writing. This book covers everything you need to know about passive writing, including how to edit it out of your work. This book includes editing examples from the novel The Pledge.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

They're absolutely right! Their overuse of the various forms of the word "repeat" certainly made ME lose interest in anything they had to say. 8p

[sabotabby]

I'm still guessing scam, just not one as obvious as you were thinking. (Probably the first course is free, but then there's an advanced course, or ads, or something.) My horribly cynical teacher-brain has even twigged to your particular score as in the sweet spot for motivation: Lower than any self-respecting writer would want to score (thus encouraging you to take their course) but high enough that you're not completely insulted and would consider taking their course.

I used to be on this site that paid you to write and edit various things (a not-inconsiderable number of which were people's theses, but I was broker and less ethical back then) and it was kind of fun and decent money. IIRC there was some kind of a star system where clients could rate you. Of course, it was technically on my boss' account, and he was well known in the industry, so he just used his five gold stars to get tons and tons of work, which he farmed out to his overworked, underpaid staff.

Anyway, I wish I could remember what the site was, because it was genuinely quite useful for earning somewhat of a living through writing. At any rate, now I'm curious what would happen if you submitted writing from Recognized Great Authors.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

I was rejected by Demand Studios because my practice article on swordplay started with types of sword traditions (fencing, Chinese forms, "live" eskrima training) and not "Step 1: hold sword by the hilt..."

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

That genuinely makes me feel better, so thank you.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Perhaps their "advice" was supposed to be a horrible example? It certainly didn't work for me.

Why do you dislike a thesaurus? It's a perfectly useful memory jog, IMHO, as long as it's not used blindly and without knowing the connotations/denotations of each word.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I love using a thesaurus, but the advice " If you can’t think of a good word to replace the one you’ve used twice already, use a thesaurus!" is very bad. Some words need to be used repeatedly because they're beige, and using a thesaurus synonym would make the replacement stand out from the sentence. "Don't repeat a word more than twice" is bad general advice.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you need to use a word more than once because precision is a priority.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

My daughter pointed out at supper that if you're keyword-stuffing, elegant variation is probably an advantage.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Yep, also a good point.

[seajules]

I'm on Textbroker, but I haven't written anything for them in years. The pay-to-effort ratio wasn't worth the spoons it cost me. If I remember right, I also scored 3 stars out of 5.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

"....pronouns help make a text less redundant"?????

*is genuinely terrified*

You mean, all those instruction booklets I thought were translated from the Korean by a badly recalibrated Dyson hand-dryer were actually written by TextBroker employees?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

... Surely you have a local paper that will pay similar rates?

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

That hadn't even occurred to me. It seems unlikely, though; the "local" paper runs about four articles a day, two off the wire (it's mainly a carrier for ads), and the SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury are both in desperate financial straits and shrinking their newsrooms.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Shrinking newsrooms of salaried employees. Therefore they need stringers. Also magazines, websites - cut out the middleman: even TextBroker potential clients! - internal mags, etc. they won't pay a lot (apart from the internal company mags) but you just said TextBroker pays badly....

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I will look into that; thank you.