Here is an example about on how to use paragraphs.
My name is Mister King.
I threw a ball at a big, bad robot.
As you can see from the above text, the name and the robot thing are two
different subjects.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Towne" <s...@xirr.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2011 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Blind Gamers Being Taken Seriously?
Everyone,
Thomas is totally correct below; as a sighted person, my first
impression several years ago of this list was not good, and it was
directly related to grammar, punctuation, and spelling problems in
postings. I understand that readers don't always read out certain
types of mistakes and that there's going to be different strengths and
weaknesses in the writing styles of the blind, but I'm still sometimes
shocked by the lack of proofreading.
The fact of the matter is that how you write matters almost as much as
what you write, and that sighted people judge messages based on the
overall 'look' of a message in addition to the content. Correct
grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are a critical part
of that look, and can make or break your message. It may take all of
two seconds for a sighted person to scan your message, decide there
are too many problems, and delete it - without ever even realizing
that you're blind or intelligent. Never forget that.
Another polite thing to do for the sighted is breaks between
paragraphs as Thomas has done below. This is pretty easy - just start
a new paragraph after two to four sentences. It's important for
sighted people because we have to manually scan the text with our eyes
to read it; there's no reader to keep track of where we're at in the
message. If a block is too big without breaks, it becomes easy to
lose your place, and most of the time I'll just skip the rest of the
block and go on to the next one rather than try to figure out where I
got confused.
Just FYI, from a sighted developer.
Dennis Towne
Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com
On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Thomas Ward <thomasward1...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Jeremy,
Yes, you definitely raise some very good points in your message. As
you pointed out the biggest problem in communicating with sighted
developers and the public at large is ignorance on their part. Most
sighted people have never met a blind person before, and even if they
have there is no way of knowing what their experience was if any. Its
our job to correct their impressions through by educating them a step
at a time, and to do it in a way that makes us look like intelligent,
competent, and mature individuals who have something worthwhile to say
about their products and services.
Its for that reason every time I see a poorly written message on
Audyssey or some other access list I inwardly cringe. I can't tell you
how many blind individuals just shoot off a message filled with poor
grammar, lack of proper punctuation, and spelling errors. Like it or
not if a sighted person reads those messages we will be judged one and
all as not very intelligent, as lacking communication skills, etc.
Bottom line, if we want the mainstream public's respect we have to
work for it, and not forgo proper language and writing skills for
convenience sake.
Here at Audyssey we considered adding proofreading to the list
guidelines to improve the quality and clarity of the posts.
Unfortunately, there were some individuals that took serious offense
to that, and felt that the moderators were going too far. All I can
draw from their reaction is they don't care about being taken
seriously and want the rest of the sighted world to view us
negatively, because that's exactly what will happen if they send a
poorly written message to a person or company who has no experience
with the blind. In short, good communication skills will go a long
ways to bridging the gap between the blind and sighted communities.
Cheers!
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