The topic lends itself to numerous discussions about price vs quality and then some more. In the end there will always be two sides of the argument; those with enough pride to craft their skill to perfection – regardless of the venture or industry; and those who simply don’t give a damn about quality because all they want is either cheap content or fast profits.

I do agree with Mark when it comes to purchasing though. If someone is selling their services to me and present themselves in an incompetent manner then I’m going to assume that the service will be equally as incompetent. I recently went online to get pricing on embossed business cards and came across a website called PrintingBlue (I hope they didn’t pay for a writer). Their unnecessary description of what business cards are was quite frightening.

Monika has made some pertinent points regarding information being the overarching concern of website owners, and I can see that.

Personally, however, when I am scouring the internet looking to make a purchase and I land on a site that is poorly written, I go elsewhere, even if that means I have to pay a little more.

My rationale here is that I become a little suspicious of the website owner’s intelligence and I am not keen on doing any sort of business with people lacking in grey matter. If I have a problem with my purchase and the vendor really is daft, our subsequent communication will suffer. I accept this view is riddled with holes, but it’s my gut reaction when I land on an “unprofessional” site. I just move on.

Cheers for joining the fray!

Let me start with the qualification part: As many of you know, I’m not an English born writer and as Mark has told me before, some of my grammar tends to get knocked sideways because of the German – English translation.

However, despite my failure to hit the mark spot on at all times I have been told many times over that my English is in fact better than 95% of the English native speaking population, therefore I do feel qualified to discuss Mark’s post from my point of view.

A recently acquired new client told me I was the best writer he’s ever employed after working with 200 odd native speaking writers – not sure whether this speaks much for most of the so called freelance writers out there, but it did make my heart go all fuzzy and my chest swell up in utter pride.

On the downside, I do know I have much to learn. To me English grammar poses several challenges, because everything is back to front from what I was taught in school with a German based education.

I strive to be a better writer today than I was the day before. Some days I succeed, other days I don’t.

Here is where things get a little more complicated: In the online world of freelance writing most clients visible to the hungry starving crowd are not prepared to pay well enough to justify hiring a highly qualified writer who understands the finer nuances of grammar and more.

This in my humble eyes is one of the main factors why the quality of online writing is often so bad – who do you think writes all the blog posts, newsletters and articles you see on the websites you visit?

If clients were paying the rates a good writer demands they would soon go bankrupt because they simply couldn’t sustain themselves long term. I also think because of the fast-paced nature of the Internet people (or shall I say most people) don’t give two hoots about the quality of the actual prose. What they REALLY want is information.

Corporate writing on the other hand does pay very well and the standard of it is generally higher than elsewhere. But finding those type of jobs isn’t easy and unless one has the right connections it is much harder to fetch those jobs.

I hear you Mark, I do know you well enough by now to understand why you wrote this post and I do agree with the scope of your post.

Hopefully you also get what I am trying to say and that because of those reasons the general quality of writing sucks, not to mention the certain lack of education these days.

Great post indeed.

What I learned to do over the years was to write very poorly – therefore the mistakes weren’t obvious Typing on the Internet is a bit of a downer for that!

I think you should fit your style to the purpose – I swear on my blog (and I don’t think Monika gives a “jot” about anything – the Australian term doesnt’ start with “j”) – as I do in real life – but I, probably, won’t swear on other people’s.

I use dashes when I should probably use a semi-colon too – but the dash looks better IMHO – and yes I use some of the more useful text-speaks (is that hypenated?) – in fact there is a long Eng. printing trad. of using shortened forms i.e. short form which have many uses e.g. saving ink and expensive paper. These days instead of op.cit. references we IMHO self-reference !

I am also aware that this is not the case in every country. Since coming to Spain 18 months ago, my ten-year-old daughter has been utterly bombarded with facts and figures in school, the like of which makes even my 1970s education look tame.

There needs to be a sea-change in the education systems of certain countries if we are ever to resurrect the standards necessary to avoid some quite irreversible damage. I know I am generalising when I say this, but I fear there is already one generation lost to the cause.

One day soon, I shall publish an extract here from an essay penned by a 21-year-old graduate about to start his Masters degree. Shocking does not begin to describe it. If I was his teacher, he’d still be failing kindergarten.

Thanks again, all. Keep it coming!

I wouldn’t feel like much of a professional at all if I were to let an ad run in the paper with bad type setting or wrong pricing/pictures. Is a writer letting an article get published (even online) with typo’s or other errors the equivalent?

I am currently trying to correct both situations with my writings.

I agree with you on the school systems dropping the ball as far as teaching students the basics of proper grammar and punctuation. I am in horror when I hear how my grandchildren aren’t even learning the basics. My oldest granddaughter is graduating high school this year and doesn’t even know how to write a term paper. Its all about the test scores and state financing. Instead of challenging our children the school system seems to be dumbing down our children.

U R so right. The lazy acceptance of the mediocre is in the process of degrading so many important things. I think as writers we owe it to ourselves to spread our wings a bit and focus on doing exemplary work.

Another great one, buddy.

George