Communication-Just some thoughts

[Andrew Schreiber]

http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...0081210?rpc=64

This is just something I found on Digg.com I felt that I should share it on here as it is something I complain at people about all the time.

Communication is a very important skill, being able to do it well is actually quite a marketable skill. Where I work most of our communication is done via email. Too many times have I seen emails come in that I have had to spend nearly 20 minutes deciphering. That does not make for a very happy morning. We also bill by the hour for most things, if I take 20 minutes to read your email that is 1/3 of an hour you just paid for. If the person could have effectively told me that they needed a column added to a report I could have completed that in 20 minutes instead of the hour it took me to decipher.

So, back to the article. According to it we can all read the 'textese' but that doesn't mean that we want to. Some of the people on these boards are old dinosaurs who have trouble reading it. Some of us on these boards also just love the English language, I think that it is an absolutely beautiful language if well written.

In short, write in English, clear, concise, English.

K thx bai

PS: If you catch errors in this laugh at the irony, I try my best and that is all I ask of anyone else.

[Akash Rastogi]

Sorry for waking an ignored thread, but due to recent posts by many members, new and old, this needs to be addressed again.

I make my own mistakes in spelling/grammar, but please, when you see a little squiggly under a word in your new post, PLEASE take the time to right click and correct it. If this is a forum of educated young adults please present it as such. Proofread your posts before you publish them. If you see something wrong after that, please edit it. Multiple times I have seen disregarded homophones and it is just a pet peeve of mine. And I guess it is a pet peeve of Andrew's as well.

I found my squiggles, took the time to right click and make the correct selection. And voila, I have a nice, clean, intelligent post that has more credibility "then someting thats ritten liek this."

Not trying to be harsh by the way.

[NorviewsVeteran]

I agree. If you have enough time to write a post, you have enough time to spell everything right.

My drafting teacher, Mr. Boffman, tells his first year students that "poor lettering can mar a drawing." The same is true that a bad typo can ruin a good post.

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by NorviewsVeteran

My drafting teacher, Mr. Boffman, tells his first year students that "poor lettering can mar a drawing." The same is true that a bad typo can ruin a good post.

I wouldn't call it a typo as much as a purposeful typing shortcut.

I'm not sure how old it is, but there is a quote by Dave Lavery I found one day when roaming the spotlights;

In the professional world, spelling mistakes, grammatical shortcuts, leet-speek, and misused verbiage are not interpreted as signs of cute, efficient communications. They are indicators of illiteracy, inefficiency, unprofessional behavior, and sloppy work habits.

I always have that in the back of my head when I post.

[Akash Rastogi]

I just wanted to add that even when you sometimes use leet-speak such as btw or ftw it may be appropriate, but large doses of such language are annoying.

[thefro526]

This is pretty funny to me. A while back I was searching through some of most posts from 2008 and I thought to myself, "Did I really type like that?". I typed on here almost like it was an Instant Messenger session. I laughed a bit actually, I read one post where I said "lol" 3 times in a sentence or two.

Needless to say, the way you type influences how people look at you. If you type like you don't have a brain in your head people might start to think you don't. Lol.

[Mr. Lim]

Somedays, I have a love/hate relationship with ChiefDelphi...

But this thread brings up one of the reasons why I love it.

By simply participating in discussions on ChiefDelphi, I've seen many members from my team become far more adept at expressing themselves through their writing. They drop the shortcuts, use proper capitalization, grammar and sentence structure, and otherwise learn to sound coherent. They realize that they NEED to do this when trying to discuss something of value on CD.

But, they don't all start off that way...

Sometimes I wonder, because our current membership doesn't contribute a lot to ChiefDelphi - at least relative to our team in the past, and especially compared to our alumni. Do they feel pressured that they have to construct a "perfect response" to uphold the reputation of the team and themselves or else face the ridicule of their peers and mentors. I hope not, but a part of me sometimes can't shake that feeling.

I want my team to post on ChiefDelphi - and I want them to do it often. I think they have a lot of interesting insight to offer, but chances are if they were to do it right now, it might come out a bit mangled. Some might even make the fatal mistake of mixing up legendary Canadian basketball icon (and now Raptors head coach) Jay Triano with legendary Canadian science icon Jay Ingram...

But the best is being able to pat the offender on the back, and in light of him/her committing ChiefDelphi reputation suicide, say something along the lines of: "Now go do something completely pro-star to make up for it..."

And guess what? They ALWAYS do.

I love it, because this is how winners come to be.

[BrendanB]

Just a funny story about "textese language"

A friend of mine wrote half of her SAT essay in texting form. Fortunately she was able to fix it in time along with most of her essay. Then I told some friends the morning of the test and they all freaked out during the essay that they were going to do it also.

I do agree that it is okay on the phone to save time, but during everyday interaction (including posts) they should be avoided.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

Do they feel pressured that they have to construct a "perfect response" to uphold the reputation of the team and themselves or else face the ridicule of their peers and mentors.

At least from the mentors it isn't ridicule. It is an abundance of concern and advice.

Many years ago the old engineer guys with the gray hair told me and my peers that it would be extremely valuable to learn how to communicate.

Of course we were know it all's so we didn't take the advice.

I can prove to you without doubt that my lax attitude during my student years on the issue of learning proper grammar, writing, and communication skills has had a negative impact on my career.

Dave's quote isn't strong enough, in my opinion.

"In the professional world, spelling mistakes, grammatical shortcuts, leet-speek, and misused verbiage are not interpreted as signs of cute, efficient communications. They are indicators of illiteracy, inefficiency, unprofessional behavior, and sloppy work habits."

My inability to properly construct a grammatically paper is a concern and a frustration of mine. It is a self-inflicted handicap of mine.

Take the advice from the old guys. Learn how to write.

[EricH]

I go to an engineering school. That said, on every standardized test I've taken of the SAT form, I score high on the math...



... And higher on the English language portions of the test. The exception? The SAT essay. I suspect it's because my writing style is kind of concise, which isn't exactly what they're looking for, or something of that nature.

At said engineering school, everyone has to go through at least three English courses (more are optional, unless you need to make up ground). Those three are: Freshman Composition, Technical Communications I, and Technical Communications II. Posting here falls under at least the first two courses I mentioned.

I'm not going to neg rep somebody for making a spelling/grammar error. I've made enough of them myself. (Don't believe me? Check the posts I made in 2005 and 2006.) Its a learning process. Practice using the English language (or any other language, for that matter) properly, and your readability will improve over time.

As another note, go out and try to find spelling and grammar errors in a published book. It's interesting to try to find them. Sometimes, it's hard. Other times, it's easy. A couple of times, my mom (an English major) and I did it on the same book. I won't say who found more, or who found errors the other missed, but the errors were there.

And your spell check won't catch some of them. I've deliberately made one in this post. The spell check didn't catch it. Can you?

Spoiler for Where it is:

It's a learning process. Yes, this is how that sentence is supposed to read.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricH

I go to an engineering school. That said, on every standardized test I've taken of the SAT form, I score high on the math...



... And higher on the English language portions of the test. The exception? The SAT essay. I suspect it's because my writing style is kind of concise, which isn't exactly what they're looking for, or something of that nature.

At said engineering school, everyone has to go through at least three English courses (more are optional, unless you need to make up ground). Those three are: Freshman Composition, Technical Communications I, and Technical Communications II. Posting here falls under at least the first two courses I mentioned.

I'm not going to neg rep somebody for making a spelling/grammar error. I've made enough of them myself. (Don't believe me? Check the posts I made in 2005 and 2006.) Its a learning process. Practice using the English language (or any other language, for that matter) properly, and your readability will improve over time.

As another note, go out and try to find spelling and grammar errors in a published book. It's interesting to try to find them. Sometimes, it's hard. Other times, it's easy. A couple of times, my mom (an English major) and I did it on the same book. I won't say who found more, or who found errors the other missed, but the errors were there.

And your spell check won't catch some of them. I've deliberately made one in this post. The spell check didn't catch it. Can you?

Spoiler for Where it is:

It's a learning process. Yes, this is how that sentence is supposed to read.

I agree, in most cases I will not neg rep a person because of a few small errors, we are all human and make mistakes. I will give a post negative rep for blatant disregard of English. Mistakes are one thing but a post that reads like:

Originally Posted by 1337XH@XZ0!2

y0 dud3 chill man lol i waz jus makin a joke lol!!!!!1

Not only will I assume the person is an idiot and knows nothing, I know we are not supposed to judge people like that but it is impossible not to. My point is, most people on here won't jump down your throat for a simple spelling mistake, I admit to not being 100% sure when to use commas myself. Some of us WILL however get very irritated if you don't even make an attempt. It is a form of respect, if you don't respect us enough to compose your thoughts in a literate manner why should we respond?

[mcb]

Heck, when I'm instant messaging, I use proper grammar and spelling.

This is kind of related - what are your thoughts on the text smilies, such as "XD" and "^^" and such? I'm rather curious. I know that most people would never use those in papers as they might use chatspeak, but in forum posts, it's a different story.

Personally, I like that they can help to convey more of what one is feeling at the time... sometimes, there's only so much that text can get across. After all, it is only text.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by thefro526

This is pretty funny to me. A while back I was searching through some of most posts from 2008 and I thought to myself, "Did I really type like that?". I typed on here almost like it was an Instant Messenger session. I laughed a bit actually, I read one post where I said "lol" 3 times in a sentence or two.

Needless to say, the way you type influences how people look at you. If you type like you don't have a brain in your head people might start to think you don't. Lol.

Wisdom.

Good communication skills are highly prized in ChiefDelphi and with good reason. Members of the robotics community post and lurk in CD and there are often questions/exchanges regarding different aspects of the technologies and sciences involved in robotics. There is technical language involved in these discussions. If posters are not working on their written communication skills, it bogs down the process in the technical threads/discussions. That cheats everyone and is a great waste of time. For the most part, many of the veteran posters are patient with new members that join and begin to understand the value of writing in a manner that everyone can understand and appreciate. It is awesome when a member can look back and see where they started and how far they've come in the area of communication, showing respect for the topic and taking the time warranted in developing their writing skills. The cool thing is that these skills can be applied in school and in the working world. They will never fail once the application process begins.

Edit: aside - I have a 21 year old daughter who texts with me throughout the day. By her own initiative, she writes without using shortcuts. It is my belief that she is showing respect to me and to the education she values. She knows the shortcuts, her friends use them but, she doesn't. (Sometimes, I do. ) Because she is so careful with her texting style, it raises my standard when I respond.

[Joe Ross]

I think that communication is very important. When in college, I chose to minor in human communication, so my opinion is biased.

Two weeks ago, I was asked by my employer to give a speech about FIRST. In talking to my coworkers, I was surprised at how many would have turned that down.

Because of how far it was, I ended up getting to talk to the manager of community relations for 5 hours, and the VP of engineering for an hour (as there are over 6000 engineers, most of us haven't spent any quality time with him). And then theres the 50 people I spoke to.

If I had thought that communication wasn't important as far back as college, I wouldn't have had this opportunity. I know that communication isn't something that I'm great at, but it's something I work at.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Not to bump an old thread but we are quickly coming up to the part of the season that some of us dread, Game Hint Season. I can't speak for everyone but I know that one of my personal reasons for hating this time of the season is the rash of semi-literate posts that seem to appear on here. So I am going to try to make a quick checklist for people posting.

1. Did you read the thread?
2. All of the thread?
3. Really? The whole thread?
4. Write your post.
5. Did you hit the preview button at least once?
6. Did you proofread your post?
7. Go back and proofread it once more time.
8. Hit Submit
9. Read what was posted just to make sure.
10. Fix any mistakes.

Just keep in mind that if you take the time to put forth an effort to communicate clearly most people will respect what you have to say more than if you communicate in an ineffective manner. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a good faith effort.

Hopefully we can avoid threads where the first two pages are repeated for 500+ posts.