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.