On 10/9/05, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
I think Tony's point is that we need to recognise well written work entirely apart from the FA process.
It's a good idea, Ian. Good writing is given too little attention, and yet it's the thing most likely to get us respected and read. No matter how accurate and neutral an article is, if it's badly written, we look silly. The greater the number of people editing an article, the faster the writing declines, which means our most popular articles are often not well written.
I've also noticed that many editors are quite happy to revert a copy edit if there's just one or two things in it they don't like, without realizing that a good copy edit is a lot of work and involves making changes all the way through the article, and is therefore a hard thing to go back and do again.
I'd welcome anything that brings the issue of good writing to people's attention and makes editors respect it more.
Sarah