The inefficacy of AI writing

 

It is an accepted vision that AI will soon entirely eliminate human writing. We old-timers will brag about how we wrote something by hand, just as some of our grandparents proudly declared that they walked through 5 miles (or kilometers, as applicable) to get to school instead of getting in the toasty car equipped with snow tires as they do now. Progress by definition, irresistibly moves forward, it is claimed. However, I would argue that AI writing may supplement homo sapiens muses but will not eliminate them, but not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with AI writing. The actual reason is that AI writing is simply not effective in many, if not most, situations involving learning, explaining and persuading.

Proper AI output requires directed prompting and editing. The initial output generally contains several stylistic errors in terms of the desired result. The inputting party must refine the prompts until the AI app produces a truly acceptable text. The a priori condition here is that the person framing the prompts is capable of identifying the issues. Therein lies the problem. Without learning how to write using the human mind alone, making mistakes and receiving feedback, a person does not develop a proper template for comparison’s perspective to even judge the AI version. Many students, including adults studying law and finance, avoid the challenge of putting their text on a page and immediately turn to AI. They lose their prime opportunity to learn how to write text and, consequently, to edit AI text. They may pay a high professional price for their shortcut.

The other aspect of AI text output involves factual errors. There is no shortage of reports in the media of AI actually inventing law cases and medical studies as it overstrives to meet the demands of the inputting party. This situation is humorous if the human party catches the error before submission or publication but can have unfortunate consequences if not. While laziness and ignorance sometimes play a part, a more pernicious factor is the illusion that AI is infallible. No AI engine makes such a claim but it is so easy to believe everything a computer tells us. Ideally, everybody would check the facts but, in practice, many writers are lazy or ignorant. Therefore, for many professionals, AI does not in fact reduce the effort involved in writing, but merely changes its form.

The main reason that AI will probably not replace human writers is far more universal. Simply put, for many purposes, its output, even guided by trained writers, does not attain the goal. Long before AI erupted on the scene, the average person did not trust language that was too sophisticated or smooth. They called it “highfalutin” or whatever the local word term was and immediately suspected either someone was hiding something or trying to make them feel stupid. As an example, if a car salesman claimed that a given vehicle was “aerodynamically and ergonomically designed to maximize power and fuel usage”, customers would look confused or suspect that the engine was too weak. Neither result would lead to sales. People prefer to hear direct language using everyday words. Ignoring his politics, President Trump may be crude but everybody understands what he is trying to say at any given moment, unlike most politicians. On LinkedIn, many writers complain about “AI-written content” being published. The issue is not the use of AI but the lack of connection to the reader. AI, even with human help, tends to “automate”, which is much less effective than less polished but honest words.

There are clearly exceptions to this tendency. Academic writing loves soufflé writing, i.e., fancy words with hidden, implied or even no meanings. AI is outstanding at producing these texts, far better than most human beings. Other fields use a specific form and lexicon to express their ideas, often rather formalized. These areas include law and business. Many legal claims and financial press notices sound almost identical aside from the relevant names and numbers. AI serves as an “expert system” in producing this coded text whose audience is in the know of the meanings and expects a certain style. In fact, these readers may not appreciate anything less than it.

Still, AI text is not appropriate for those who are learning, researching and persuading. Even with editing, it quite often triggers an intuitive resistance to the message and the suspicion that something is amiss. It will take a period of time before the impact of these AI inadequacies strikes home to the enthusiastic AI users out there, but the issues will not disappear. In summary, realistically, taking a walk is an enjoyable and healthy experience. However, there is nothing wrong with staying dry and comfortable in a car on an unpleasantly hot or rainy day. AI and human writing are not mutually exclusive.

AI writing – fancy or highfalutin?

 

[rainbow over my parents' house]

I had the peculiar experience of seeing my parents’ house advertised for sale after my mother died. I have to admit that I found it difficult match the description of the property to the actual house. It read:

“Nestled within the Encino Hills, near Mulholland Dr, in the acclaimed Lanai Road Elementary school district, sits this charming mid-century 4 bedroom, 2 bath 2,202 sq. foot home ready for its new owner. Don't miss the chance to reimagine this nearly 16k lot surrounded by flourishing foliage and citrus. Enter through double doors into a foyer which connects to a spacious vaulted ceiling formal living room with a fireplace and adjoining dining area….”

In reality, it was an expanded but simple aging wooden house but clearly the AI-created description makes it seem far more attractive to buyers.

This personal example highlights the strength as well as the dangerous temptation of AI writing. On the one hand, it is an expert-system, creating a text that only highly experienced and talented copywriters can write. On the other hand, in many cases, the resulting text is not actually effective in communicating the message as many English speakers consider overly fancy language either exaggerated or intended to deceive.

To be clear, AI produces text according to the prompts that the writer enters. The parameters include, among other, level of vocabulary, purpose of the document and educational level of the reader. Thus, in theory, AI should be able to produce a text that is tailored for the intended goal. Accoridingly, the skill of the programmer has a dominant influence on the relevance of the text.

One of the major problems is that a significant percentage of those using AI to write their texts are not fully fluent in the language and often unaware of the nuances of communicative language. Thus, based the concept that more the better or, as in the case of writing, the higher, the better, users tends to aim to write highly sophisticated texts. The resulting copy thus chooses the elegant and indirect route instead of the simple and direct approach. For example, compare “visitors have the possibility of observing a myriad of animal species at the local zoological center” and “visitors can view a wide variety of animals at the zoo.” Clearly, the first shows a far richer level of vocabulary but many adults, even some native speakers, not to mention children, would struggle to understand the meaning or find it off-putting.

The cultural background affecting this reaction to high-level language partly stems from a preference in English for content over style. For many English speakers, using sophisticated language in terms of vocabulary and structure is viewed as an attempt to prove personal superiority or hide the truth. In simple terms, English speakers often expect to a person to say something directly and not decorate it. Americans in particular expect their leaders to “tell it like it is” and value that type of communication even if the form is rather simplistic, even crude. For example, many voters truly respect Trump because of his manner of answering questions but he is not the first president to be overly direct. Even modern legal language strives to be simple and direct and drop its pretensions as many modern scholars consider the use of legalese as an elitest and dangerous practice.  See my previous post.

This insistence on clarity at the price of elegance is contrast to the situation in many other countries and cultures. In France, for example, listeners are often quite willing to forgive a complete lack of content if the language is elegant enough. Almost all French politicians and even masters of ceremonies sound almost royal in their speech. It is hard to name one French president that was not an elegant speaker. Thus, AI creates more benefit in some languages than in others.

Thus, an AI user without the knowledge of when high-level language is appropriate can unintentionally create an artificial and/or ineffective text. People seeing a marketing text with such language know that it is not written by a human as almost no one can or wants to write in that style. Thus, the alien text only highlights the fact that they cannot write. Even worse, if the purpose of the copy was to sell or persuade, the AI-generated copy will tend to create distrust, the exact opposite.

To give a concert example of power of short direct speech, note that most Americans know by heart at least a part of Abrahams’ Lincoln’s Gettysburg address  (1863), which totals 272 words, while nobody remembers a single word from the preceding two-hour speech by Edward Everett. English speakers prefer, to paraphrase Lincoln, English “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It does not mean that that there is no place of AI texts. My parents’ house sold quite fast in fact. However, direct plain English, edited until it is clear and smooth, often produces better results. Simply put, highfalutin AI English is often not an appropriate manner of expression.

What is to be done – The burning issues of marketing content format

 

[workers banging money into a surface*]

Recently, I had a relevant and frank discussion with a forum administrator about the format of my posts. She suggested with great logic that my posts would be more effective if they were in “bullet” form, i.e., short informational sentences. After this conversation, I carefully considered her comment but nevertheless decided to keep on writing organized paragraph-based posts I recognize the time advantages of bullet writing but prefer to take advantage of the power of formal composition to increase retention and develop complex thoughts.

Clearly, bullet posts are faster in terms of understanding and writing. To define, their form often resembles this:

3 ways to [fill in]

Intro

1.       [fill in with two sentences]

2.      [fill in with two sentences]

3.      [fill in with two sentences]

Conclusion

The beauty of such a construction is that the reader, even many non-natives, can finish the whole text within a minute or two and fully understand the points. In practice, the writer has reduced a complex issue to an easily digestible dish. Furthermore, the major challenge for the writer of such posts is identifying the main points, thus rendering the language element into simple, direct sentences whose connections are reflected in the form. Overall, bullet-style writing seems ideal for busy readers and writers alike.

However, this form often suffers from low retention and lack of depth. Specifically, many people forget most of the points, not to mention the name of the writer, within minutes of reading them. As I explain to my students when teaching writing, in order to retain ideas, the human mind requires repetition. In simple terms, once is often not enough either for remembering marketing ideas or shopping lists. Furthermore, if carefully considered, most issues have a certain degree of grey, attenuating conditions if you will. A statement may be true and appropriate 90% of the time but it is occasionally either or neither of them. Adding qualifying conditions to the bullet approach reduces its effectiveness by adding complexity. The lack of repetition and depth are some drawbacks of this form of writing.

As I write for marketing purposes, which aims for long-term retention and demonstration of expertise, I prefer formal paragraph-based writing because it sinks in better, explains more and adds the personality of the writer. The structure of a paragraph, i.e., topic sentence, details and conclusion, involves repetition. By reiterating an idea three times before continuing, paragraphs create deeper images. By writing multiple paragraphs, the author can discuss all or many of the aspects of a concept, including its limitations and drawbacks. The information provided is much three-dimensional and applicable. As a lover of language, I believe that paragraphs allow writers to reflect their human personality as compared to informational sources. Think of Cyrano de Bergerac. Readers receive a fuller picture of both the content and the writer.

Granted, paragraph writing is much more demanding both for the reader and writer. Longer posts often require five minutes or more to read and require greater attention, especially for non-native speakers. For writers, as the prose must be interesting or at least encourage the reader to continue, the writing process is much more demanding in terms of initial time and polishing. Clearly, writing bullets is much more “user-friendly” than formal composition.

Still, I prefer paragraphs even at that price. For anybody that had the particular pleasure of reading What is to be done – the burning issues of our times [shto deletz], a political pamphlet written by Lenin in 1902 (or any other writing by him for that matter), the unforgiveable aspect of his writing is the sheer amount of repetition of the same idea, like a jack hammer, such that every peasant and worker could understand what he wanted to say. I do not recommend Lenin as a stylistic model, of course. However, if the long-term goal of writing market content is to be remembered, creative repetition is necessary. In my view, at least for marketing content, formal paragraphs are more effective than bullets.

* Picture captions allow the blind to fully access the Internet.

Picture credit

Relatively rude – International communication

 

[Tower of Babel*]

The world may be becoming a global village but each of us has our own native language and culture. This tower of Babel, now just as then, creates infinite possibilities for misunderstanding, especially when negative emotions are expressed. For example, the line between acceptable annoyance and unacceptable anger is cultural and subject to interpretation. The manner in which people express these feelings vary by culture and even subculture, a factor to be taken into account when interpreting communication, especially written, and sending messages.

Each culture, however defined, has created its norms for the acceptable manner of expressing dissatisfaction beyond which the message is considered too angry and personal for business communication. Two factors in this framing are directness and registry. The Mediterranean and China are known for their direct approach in terms of syntax. “You have not paid me” is not considered rude but a fact, however unpleasant. Other regions insist on a more indirect, objective approach that would be laughed at by direct cultures. “I have no record of payment” sounds much less accusatory and more professional than the direct accusation to an American or Brit even though the message is the same. Not every country appreciates straight-to-the-point communication

Register also is a factor. For example, the form of the second person pronoun or lack thereof is part of the message. For example, the choice of the informal you (e.g., tu in French and du in German) would create a very negative reaction as compared to the vous and Sie, respectively. Likewise, Japanese business culture requires frequent use of honorific particles. The use of titles such as Mr. or Mrs. is obligatory in many cultures but even insulting in other ones. For example, in Israel, women under the age of 60 do not appreciate being referred to as “Mrs. So and So” as it that implies she is old. On the other hand, I sort of enjoy being called Mr. Rifkind in the United States even if I subconsciously look if my late father is near me as it means that I am receiving respect. In written communication, this formality is expressed in the closing. For instance, proper English letters should end in yours truly, yours sincerely or respectfully yours regardless how untruthful, insincere or disrespectful the letter is. Similarly, all formal French letter end in “Veuillez agréer l'expression de mes sentiments distingués”, be assured of the expression of my distinguished sentiments in English, even if the writer is threatening to send the receiver of the letter to jail. Noblesse oblige. As long as the rules of syntax and formality are followed, the message can sometimes avoid being rude but merely be highly unpleasant.

For the receiver of emails and memos from other culture, this variety of approaches means careful consideration of the form as well as the message in order to ascertain the actual emotional subcontext. For example, the sentence “I found many errors in your work” implies varying degrees of dissatisfaction. If an Israel or Spaniard writes this, it is probable that the receiving party will have an opportunity to re-establish trust. By contrast, this same line from an English or German would probably mean the end of the business relationship. On the other end of the scale, the sentence “we would appreciate delivery in the near future” coming from a UK agency is not a polite request but an order. It is an error to base interpretation of the message on the culture of the receiver as that of the sender is the determining factor.

It should be noted that most users (including writers) of English worldwide have a different native language, meaning they did not grow up in an Anglo-Saxon country. Their level of mastery of English and awareness of culture differences thus varies greatly. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the name of a person provides no clue to where they were born. Just because the first or last name may “sound” Spanish or Asian, for example, does not have any significance of their mastery of a language or cultural norms. As a result of this linguistic shuffling of the cards, it is a good policy to allow for cultural confusion in interpreting communication. In practice, the person writing the message may have no idea that their form of expression is rude. The worldwide village demands some tolerance to operate properly.

As for creating communication, business people must attempt to take into consideration the cultural background of the receiving party, if possible. The purpose of communication is to attain a goal, which generally does not include insulting the person or getting them angry. Therefore, it is advisable to apply some indirectness where appropriate, i.e., discuss facts, not personal intentions. For example, I would appreciate payment within seven days works much better than Pay me within seven days, especially if a hefty arrears interest is then mentioned. The message gets across. Likewise, it is important to always begin correspondence with a proper salutation and closing and maintain language-appropriate formality. The French are genius at polite nastiness. Let your words attain your goal without interference from your form. When in doubt, consult with an expert. Clear communication is a key for solid results.

Doing business worldwide not only requires language skills but also cultural awareness. Faced with the need to communicate effectively with someone on the other side of the world, geographically or culturally, business people struggle to express what they mean and understandably so. After all, “Isn’t that rude?” is in fact a very complicated and important question.

* Always label your pictures to allow the blind access to your posts.

Pictures: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/gdj-1086657/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5771062">Gordon Johnson</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5771062">Pixabay</a>

Writer’s block

                                                                              [hat*]

At the college where I teach, the Braude School of Engineering in Karmiel, Israel, we have changed the curriculum of the required English classes to include writing of paragraphs. The students are high achievers as getting accepted to engineering school requires high grades. Ranging in age from 18 – 28, they are highly motivated to learn. They are required to take two or three English courses, depending on the department but may have to take more if their starting English level is too low. In terms of vocabulary and comprehension, they have little problem handing general and even specialized texts but often initially struggle in writing a simple sentence properly. Yet, in practice, the main challenge in teaching them writing stems not from transmitting the technical aspects of the art but in overcoming the varying degrees of starting ignorance suffered by the students.

One serious deficiency created by the Israeli educational system is the lack of ability to organize ideas and thoughts.  In order to be efficient with the limited class time and the collective need of the students, teachers and school administration to achieve high scores on the Bagrut exam, the Israeli national high school matriculation exam, similar to the French Bac, teachers tend to feed summaries of the material to the students. As a result, most students get little practice in identifying and organizing main ideas. Therefore, when we request a student to write a paragraph with a topic sentence including three subtopics, many find it difficult to hit the nail on the head, i.e., write a topic sentence without any distracting elements. The issue is not their English, which is generally quite good, but instead the lack of skill in identifying the essential elements and expressing them. It requires significant work by both the student and teacher to overcome this obstacle.

Engineering students often are victims of the European academic distinctions in high school. It appears that science track students are supposed to be expert with numbers and formulas but don’t need to know how to communicate while humanity track students must know how to express themselves but are not required to understand science. Both assumptions are entirely false but so are many other assumptions of traditional education systems, frequently based on 19^th century ideas. One of the results of this tracking is that many science students seem unaware that spoken and written language differ. It is necessary to reiterate several times that written text is expected to strictly comply with the rules of grammar, syntax and flow as well as employ a wider and higher variety of vocabulary. These students tend to write as they speak and often fail to understand why that is not acceptable. For example, they suffer from the ubiquitous use of the word and as a connector, a major no-no in written English. Students whose native language is Russia and Arabic have an increased tendency to insert the period at the end of the idea regardless of how many subject-verb combinations precede it. Again, only frequent feedback can create the awareness of the singularity of written communication.

Lastly, as most Israeli high school students write so few compositions in their own language, they have no awareness of the writing process.  Granted, it is more difficult to write a nice sounding sentence in English because it is a non-homogenous language, i.e., its roots are derived from many languages. Yet, as I tell my students many times and create long deadline to reflect, there is no such things as good writing, only good rewriting. Under extreme pressure from the heavy load of the first-year engineering program, they initially tend to write a first draft of a paragraph and believe they have completed the assignment. Only after several “bloody” paragraph feedbacks (from my corrections) do they start to apply the various QA techniques I suggest for polishing. Once again, these intelligent students lack understanding of the writing process and must be taught it.

Thus, writing, a new “can-do” task mandated by the Ministry of Education and Council of Higher Education in Israel, involves more than teaching English as a language, whose level varies significantly. Just as significantly, it requires an increase in the students’ understanding of the whole writing process, regardless of language, in terms of logic, form of expression and process. The key to achieving this goal is, fortunately, practice and feedback, which involve hard work by all parties. I personally de-emphasize grades in the practice stage in order to encourage students to go beyond their comfort zone. Strong feedback, including praise for successful elements, is the engine for change and improvement, however painful that may be. Furthermore, the rod should not be spared as students need to grasp and internalize that negligent (not poor) work will result in harsh but constructive criticism. In other words, the teacher must explain the rules and guidelines thoroughly but expect students to apply them. The reward for everybody’s hard work is a good grade on a final project in the short term and attainment of an important life skill in the long term.

The basic difficulties faced by these engineering students are not a result of a lack of intelligence but instead lack of training. As such, it is possible to overcome their lack of background and instill an understanding of organization, language and process through practice and caring. I am proud of the progress made by my students in the last 13 weeks despite (or maybe because of) the Zoom teaching. They worked hard and learned how to communicate a developed idea in English clearly and succinctly despite their initial writing blocks. Chapeau to them.

* Always include a picture caption to allow the blind to enjoy. Picture - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/OpenClipart-Vectors-30363/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=157581">OpenClipart-Vectors</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=157581">Pixabay</a>

Twenty thousand views under the see (column)

(My apologies to Jules Verne)

This week, I eagerly watched as my number under pageview column on my blog statistics approached and reached 20,000. It was both a meaningless and momentous moment. On the one hand, some blogs reach that number within two or even one post. I cannot and do not try to compete with these popular writers. On the other hand, given the number of people that begin blogs and effectively stop writing after three months or so, I have achieved something, however modest. So, on this special occasion, possibly for the benefit of those seriously considering a blog, I offer some random but relevant comments.

I write three times a month and have so for a few years. This frequency is related to the writing process. I need to think of a subject that lights up the neurons in the brain, not always an easy process. So, if the goal is one post per week, I allow for lack of inspiration and therefore am never disappointed in myself for not writing that week. As they say, success leads to success.

In terms of subject matter, I almost never write about politics. It is a great way to boost view numbers but, at best, creates simultaneous monologues. People almost never change their political view due to what they read. Therefore, my ideas would have essentially no impact. Instead, I try to provide a perspective about culture and language. At worst, some people find it irrelevant. At best, I may enrich their perspective. In any case, they gain knowledge.

As for popularity, I have learned that it is impossible to predict which posts will create the most interest. My most viewed post is entitled Non-trite eating and delineates the meanings of the various synonyms for the word eat, not exactly an earth-shattering topic. Others that I believed to be thought provoking received few views. It could all be a matter of timing and coincidence for all I know.

In regards to the statistics themselves, I am still confused about the actual meaning of a pageview. I understand that not every page view is an actual read nor is every actual read reflected in this number.

However, fundamentally it makes no difference. I have discovered that I write for the pleasure of writing, the same way that I dance for the pleasure of dancing. It is the process of artistic creation that is no less magic than the creation itself. Naturally, it makes me happy to see large numbers of people read and react to my posts. Yet, that is the essentially the cherry on top. The real satisfaction is in creating the post. That is what motivates me and has helped me reach the number, impressive or not, of 20,000 views.

To all those that have read my posts, I thank you and hope you will continue to follow me. I honestly hope that I have entertained you at times and maybe provided you with a new perspective. If I got you to laugh a bit, I have truly succeeded. Please let me know what your favorite post was.

I now look forward to pageview number 40,000.

Writing it Right

To most foreigners, English seems a reasonably easy language to speak.  With a few words and a most basic understanding of grammar, non-native speakers quickly start making sentences, even the Chinese whose native syntax is so different. Expressing ideas in writing in English is another story. Given the luxury and curse of being able to review the sentence before sending off to another person, people realize how “foreign” their English is, not to mention how much it shows their lack of vocabulary and knowledge of grammar. As a professional teacher of English and a non-gifted writer, meaning I had to work hard to learn how to be able to write properly, I see three major difficulties in crafting the language of Shakespeare on paper.

The most obvious difficulty is vocabulary.  Except in regards to emotions, there is no excuse not to say exactly what you mean.  Words like good, bad and thing are essentially meaningless due to the extreme range of specific contexts they carry. Not only that, given the number of synonyms, it is considered bad form to repeat the same word in the same sentence or even in the paragraph. Writers impress by their richness of vocabulary, for better or worse. Investors invest in future investments is not going to cut it when words such as place money, speculate and opportunities, to name just a few, could also be used, albeit with a slightly different meaning.  To be a good writer, a rich vocabulary is necessary.

There is also the matter of sounds. Relatively homogeneous languages, such as French, Hebrew and Russian, the languages from which I translate, have a natural rhythm. They easily create a song: Je suis comme je suis. Je suis faite comme ca, as André Prévert said. English, alas, is comprised from three major language families, Gaelic, Germanic and Latin (French), not to mention the countless words derived from other sources, such as ketchup (Chinese), jubilee (Hebrew) and kangaroo (aborigine). The result of this mixed cocktail is a series of words whose rhythms and sounds are rather cacophonous. A diamond of a sentence in English takes serious polishing. That is the reason that I admire writers, such as Orwell, whose writing has the illusion of being so effortless.

Finally, ultimately the most demanding criterion of proper English writing is the requirement that the author actually say something and even efficiently.  Having content may seem obvious but, in fact, many languages strongly de-emphasize it when judging the quality of good writing. In French, especially the modern version, the witty phrase always gets the applause, even no serious thought lies behind it. In Russian, ideas become rather obtuse due to the fluid sentence structure and extreme use of filler words that have no actual meaning. Sentences there tend to be rather convoluted and long, often weakening the impact of the idea. There is no such luxury in English. If you write in an ornate, i.e. overly complicated style, readers tend to think that you are trying to impress or, even worse, hide your lack of knowledge. Neither is desirable.

So, my advice, once again as a teacher, to foreign learners of English is read a lot in English to build up your vocabulary; read your sentences out loud and revise until they sound good; and, finally, don’t get too fancy with the sentence structure. Instead, focus on the ideas and organization.  These goals are easier said than done but still attainable.

The Synergy of Writing and Righting

Writing on a certain level is a lonely affair, with the writer bravely trying to fill the blank screen or paper with the intended idea in such a way as the reader will understand it.  In most cases, the author is in a bubble never receiving criticism (in the positive meaning of the word), with the only feedback being the internal drive to make the text better.  As s translator, I live that reality, almost never actually seeing how my best intentioned text arrives at the client’s desk and the latter’s reaction to it.  The major exceptions are texts that are published either as a book or on the Internet.

It should be noted that writing is a such a personal task to which criticism, no matter how well intended, is generally viewed as hostility as if it is the reader’s fault for not understanding what the writer meant or appreciating the author’s unique style.  As a demonstration, my father, who worked as a journalist for the AP for many years, used to edit all of my papers through high school.  Since they usually came back more red than black, I dreaded the experience each time. 

Later, when I wrote my thesis for the MBA, I was grateful for my father’s help as I was working full time and being a father to a small baby. Not having time to revise my raw first drafts, I would send them to him.  They, of course, came to me very bloody.  This time, however, I was grateful for the corrections and did not dread them.

Recently, I translated one of two documents of a large, complicated project involving a price quote from French to English. It turned out that the other document was basically identical.  So, two translators essentially produced two different versions of the same text. After the project was finished, I was asked by the translation company to “harmonize”, that is, create one version.  Overcoming my initial reluctance, I read through the two documents sentence by sentence, comparing the versions and either selecting the better of the two or combining elements of both.  It should be noted that both translations were generally quite good, even if with an occasional gaff.

While the process was time-consuming and tiring, it was extremely enlightening and encouraging. First, the final documents were at a clearly higher level than either of the originals.  Second, discovering the manner of improving the text provided a lesson in better writing I intend to apply to future translations. Last, the experience emphasized that making the search for the perfect text the focus instead of justifying the writer’s word choice is not only vital and possible, but makes self-criticism a positive experience.  To go beyond that quote “There is no good writing; there is only good re-writing,; translators and writers of all kinds can not only benefit from feedback, they can also learn to relish it to the benefit of their work.