I read a post last night from an alt-right account talking about immigration. I read it because it was resteemed by someone followed and I was interested in the context. As can be expected, the article was critical of the immigrant involved and the laws that allowed them to achieve the position etc. This is not about the article though, it is about the writing involved.
The author of the article has written a piece of such poor quality, at times it was hard to decipher the meaning of sentences. There were grammatical errors such as 'there' instead of 'they're' and long strings of words without commas. In fact, there is not one comma in the entire text. Quite a feat considering the sentence structure.
This is a problem though, as regardless of what I think about the content, it loses all credibility under the assumption that the writer is a native speaker. That is a large assumption perhaps but, considering the content of the blog, not a great leap.
When it comes to reading the content of non-native speakers, I am very forgiving on a whole host of grammatical errors as well as spelling, word choice and structure but, when it comes to natives, I am a lot less so. This is especially true when a writer is trying to argue for or against a position because poor grammar hints at their level of either education or, the amount of care they are putting into their work.
In my opinion, it is hard to gain credibility as someone who has thought well through the details of a situation if one is blind to their own grammatical mistakes. Yes, mistakes happen but, how many are allowable in one article of three paragraphs?
I am no grammar expert and I make my fair share of typos and the like however, I do try to put something forward that has the chance of passing a year ten, high school English test. Again, this is not critical of the non-native speakers but I hope that all people do at least review the work they put forward.
How something is written tells a lot about a person and affects the credibility of the information provided. You may not agree but, presentation does matter and if good information is presented poorly, it is going to affect the audience. I am not saying the article I read contained good information though.
What I actually find incredible here is how brilliant some of the non-native speakers are in their writing. It could be that they take extra care in their articles but, it is the same when in chat on the fly. It points to how lazy I myself am considering I have lived in a country for 15 years where I do not speak the language and it is one my 18 month old daughter will speak as a native.
English speakers are spoiled when it comes to their ability to communicate globally which makes their failures all the more obvious. One doesn't need to be able to write the next Great American Novel but, basic grammatical structure would go a long way in being able to better position arguments.
The internet is full of very simple grammar lessons and with small a amount of attention and practice, people can become much better writers. How come so few actually take the time?
Perhaps more native English speakers should 'Learn the language'.
Taraz
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