Critic's help required.

[Black Baron]

I began to write something in order to improve my english as well as my writing style. All rights naturally are reserved to me. Do not post, copy or distribute it without my written and verbal permission.
Please give some comments. It is a part of something bigger, so more will come (i hope so. can't be sure though). Moderators and Z, i did not know where to post it so i posted it here. move it as you wish.


The building that belonged to Naval Intelligence Services was for lack of other words simply dull. It was big, square, and grey and in some places badly wanting paint and in others crying for attention of a cleaning team. Dust that collected for decades in several places reached height of several centimeters. If not for the rains and strong winds it could have reached several meters, but since that the façade faced the ocean’s bay, the dust had to remain on its current level. The façade was the only part of the building that had windows so it was the only place where the building was in bad condition. The rest of the building could not shame his majesty’s palace in extravagancy with bright colors and golden armaments. The fact that that the armaments’ golden color was almost gone did not pose any question or problem for the officer that was in charge of the maintenance. Half of the armaments were stolen by the local teenagers that wanted to do something daring. Maintenance officer Murdock probably thought that the rest of them will be stolen soon enough, so he will not have to trouble himself with such petty problems. Other problems, like leaking roof or totally mad choice of colors (bright red, brown and acidly yellow and of course grey) that the building was painted with, were also regarded as petty. The only problem that was not petty in those bright eyes of a recently gutted fish was the problem with the name of the building that was written on the buildings rear (and total doorless) side with welded letters. These twenty six letters- NAVALE INTELLEGENCE CERVESIS were his bane, his source of nightmares and also our source of jokes on his part. Each night two things happened. The first one was theft of several letters and their proceeding dampening in a nearby lake, where they were left for Murdock that carried them all the way back and proudly nailed them in the morning to their proper place. The second thing was the appearance of another set of letters that pointed out the obvious analphabetic side of Murdock (that wrote the name in the first place) and his inability to do anything regarding that issue as well his inability to stop the night vandals. Murdock wanted to catch the thieves but he could not. Yes, he was still young enough and could give these “dirty rascals” a good chase and probably catch some, but he was as lazy as a cat on the sun. He went home precisely at eighteen hours. The kids appeared one or two hours later. Murdock wanted to hire some guards, but our superior, chief of NIS, Helmut, was too greedy man. He said to Murdock that he did not give a damn about these letters but if Murdock cared about them, he could gladly deprive Murdock of his salary and use it to hire the guards. Murdock who was at the very least as greedy as Helmut promptly refused.

As a matter of fact it was Helmut’s greediness that brought me here. The old mangy fox, which Helmut resembled both in his appearance and his intellect, did not pay my salary for the late month. He missed the deadline for a day and as I knew him if I did not collect it soon, I will not see it at all.

[Vaskez]

OK here's my analysis, but I warn you, I am VERY picky about grammar and spelling (I just suppress that on here otherwise I'd get hated out )

Sentence 1 needs commas and an extra word, like so:

The building that belonged to THE Naval Intelligence Services was, for lack of other words, simply dull.

Sentence 2: "...crying for THE attention of a cleaning team"


Hmm, this is going to take longer than I expected.... oh well I can't be bothered now, so just some general comments:

Don't use the same word twice in the same sentence if you can help it. E.g.

"Dust that collected for decades in several places reached height of several centimeters."

you've used "several" twice, it sounds better if you select a synonym for the second occurrence. Anyway, the sentence sounds better as:

"Dust that had been collecting for decades in various places had reached heights of several centimeters."


Break it up into more paragraphs. Every new subject, start a new paragraph. Eg. you could start a new paragraph at "Other problems..."


There are many places where the choice of words shows that english is not your first language, and I or other people here can help you out with that. Generally it's very good for someone with English not as their first language [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Animal]

Don't listen to him, he's just waaaayyyy to picky!

For English as being a second language, very well done. English is the hardest language to learn, especially writing, so keep up the good job.

PS: Like Vaskez, all I see is just a few grammer errors. Just keep working at it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Melusine]

I disagree, I'm glad there are still people like Vaskez who care about writing normally and without spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
And obviously Black Baron cares about that too or he wouldn't practise his English. Of course you don't need to hold up non-native speakers to the same standards as you do native speakers, but if there's one thing I myself find unhelpful it's when people go "Oh your English is good enough as it is, very well done especially since it isn't your mother tongue". If I make mistakes I like to be told. There's a difference between deliberately picking on non-native speakers when they make random posts or giving criticism to someone who asks for it.

Edit: One thing that is annoying about criticism though is that when someone asks for it, he/she sometimes gets replies from people whose own English is less than perfect. When that leads someone learning the language to adopting mistakes for fact, that's a shame. And that's also why I'm not going to criticise your piece Black Baron, unless it is to point out obvious spelling mistakes or similar things that can be looked up (would have to read it first though... maybe in the morning ). Stylewise only a native speaker with a good command of the language can be of help. Not every speaker of a language is a GOOD speaker of it.

[ 05-24-2004, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Melusine ]

[Animal]

Originally posted by Melusine: I disagree, I'm glad there are still people like Vaskez who care about writing normally and without spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. And obviously Black Baron cares about that too or he wouldn't practise his English. Of course you don't need to hold up non-native speakers to the same standards as you do native speakers, but if there's one thing I myself find unhelpful it's when people go "Oh your English is good enough as it is, very well done especially since it isn't your mother tongue". If I make mistakes I like to be told. There's a difference between deliberately picking on non-native speakers when they make random posts or giving criticism to someone who asks for it. Edit: One thing that is annoying about criticism though is that when someone asks for it, he/she sometimes gets replies from people whose own English is less than perfect. When that leads someone learning the language to adopting mistakes for fact, that's a shame. And that's also why I'm not going to criticise your piece Black Baron, unless it is to point out obvious spelling mistakes or similar things that can be looked up (would have to read it first though... maybe in the morning ). Stylewise only a native speaker with a good command of the language can be of help. Not every speaker of a language is a GOOD speaker of it.

In your first sentence, "I disagree, I'm glad there are still people like Vaskez who care about writing normally and without spelling mistakes and grammatical errors." you used a comma when you should have used a period. They are two different sentences.

A little positive reinforcement goes a long way. I acknowledged the errors, however I did not want to dwell on them. Considering English isn't Black Barons native tongue he did a fine job, despite the minor errors.

Heck, most of us who are English speaking since birth will never fully master the intricacies (sp?) of our language.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't catch your edit. Good call! I don't think there is anyone here on IW who has the credentials to criticise your writing.

[ 05-24-2004, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Animal ]

[Melusine]

Hmm, is a period really the only possibility there? Wow, then it's good I asked for help! I had no idea. What about a semi-colon or something? *looks hopeful* You're right I shouldn't have used a comma though.

And I see what you mean too, but you don't learn a language by being told "you're doing really well, good job" because people are afraid to hurt your feelings. Just because English isn't my first language doesn't mean I want people to go too easy on me. Of course it's obvious I'll never be as good as a native speaker (well... I have to say I've seen native speakers with worse spelling than I but you get the point) but I'm talking about really abominable spelling/grammar and such. I don't think it's unfair to hold non-native speakers up to at least some sort of standard - as long as you use positive reinforcement as you say, they'll only learn from it and become more intelligible.

[Vaskez]

Without trying to brag or anything, that's why I try and help out cos english is my second language too but I learnt it at a young age in a native environment, hence I got the best of both worlds: learning it specially as a non-mother-tongue, but growing up in the actual country that speaks it. It's actually got to the point (a while ago in fact) that I speak english better than my mother-tongue (understanding is the same level but when it comes to speaking, I forget words in Hungarian )

So basically, I can help out with stuff like what "sounds english" cos I do "feel" that if you know what I mean.

Obviously, writing stuff like "cos" etc. is laziness but I only do it on here or in informal emails.

Having said all that, when I get more time I can give you a few more pointers if you want, e.g. on where the writing could sound more english, BB.

Oh and Mel, what's this debate about whether only a period will do or not? What was your original sentence? Maybe I can shed some light on the subject

I'm guessing it was:

"I disagree, I'm glad there are still people like Vaskez who care about writing normally and without spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and obviously Black Baron cares about that too or he wouldn't practise his English. "

since you now have a sentence beginning with "and" which is a no-no
I think this is valid too:
"I disagree, I'm glad there are still people like Vaskez who care about writing normally and without spelling mistakes and grammatical errors; obviously Black Baron cares about that too or he wouldn't practice his English. "
Note practice with a c, not s

However, to be sure of using ; correctly, I only use it when I want to have a fragment of a sentence on the end of another related sentence. Example from my dissertation:

"As opposed to table-driven protocols that store the next hop to each destination (such as AODV [6]), DSR uses source-routing; it stores whole routes and this route is inserted in each data packet header by the source node."

[ 05-24-2004, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Assassin]

This is how I would write it out (I'm no good at saying what you could improve, because I do it by instinct):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The building that belonged to Naval Intelligence Services was, for lack of other words, simply dull. It was big, square, and grey; in some places it badly wanted paint and in others it was just crying for the attention of a cleaning team. Dust that had collected for decades in several places had reached height of several centimeters. If not for the rains and strong winds it could have reached several meters, but since the façade faced the ocean’s bay, the dust had to remain on its current level. The façade was the only part of the building that had windows so it was the only place where the building was in bad condition. The rest of the building would not shame His Majesty’s palace in extravagancy with bright colors and golden armaments. The fact that the armaments’ golden color was almost gone did not pose any question or problem for the officer that was in charge of the maintenance. Half of the armaments were stolen by the local teenagers that wanted to do something daring. The maintenance officer, who went by Murdock, thought that the rest of them would be stolen soon enough, so that he would not have to trouble himself with such petty problems. Other problems, like the leaking roof or the odd choice of colors (bright red, brown and acidly yellow and of course grey) that the building was painted with were also regarded as petty [?- petty is perhaps not the right word here]. The only problem that was not petty [?- petty is perhaps not the right word here] in the bright eyes of a recently gutted fish was the problem with the name of the building that was written on the buildings rear (and doorless) side with welded letters. These twenty six letters- NAVALE INTELLEGENCE CERVESIS were his [pronoun; explicitly say who 'him' is] bane, his source of nightmares and also our source of jokes on his part.

Every night two events happened. The first event was the theft of several letters and their consequential dunking in a nearby lake, where they were left for Murdock who carried them all the way back and promptly nailed them in the morning to their proper place. The second one was the appearance of yet another set of letters that pointed out the obvious analphabetic side of Murdock (that wrote the name in the first place) and his inability to do anything regarding that issue, as well his inability to stop the night vandals. Murdock wanted to catch the thieves but he would not. Yes, he was still young enough and could give these “dirty rascals” a good chase and probably catch some, but he was as lazy as a cat on the sun. He went home precisely at eighteen hours while his [added in by me, but I don't know if they're his kids] kids appeared one or two hours later. Murdock wanted to hire some guards for the building, but our superior, chief of NIS, Helmut, was too greedy man. He said to Murdock that he did not give a damn about these letters but if Murdock cared about them, he would gladly deprive Murdock of his salary and use it to hire the guards. Murdock who was at the very least as greedy as Helmut who promptly refused.

As a matter of fact, it was Helmut’s greediness that brought me here. The old mangy fox, of whom Helmut resembled both in his appearance and his intellect, did not pay my salary for the late month. He had missed the deadline for a day and as I knew him well, if I did not collect it soon, I will not see it at all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, I didn't know exactly how to switch around the last bit. You suddenly go into first person in the middle of the paragraph. You also miss a few 'the's, and other little things like that...

[ 05-24-2004, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

[Black Baron]

Ok, thanks for the help every one.