Studying when you're an international student

[qukezy]

I'm an ESL student and I decided to enter college in USA because it gives me more opportunities for development. I can't say it's too hard for me, I do well in college, but sometimes I face difficulties with writing papers. To be exact, I can't identify and correct mistakes, and I mean not only spelling and grammar. I spend a lot of time on learning various sources of information, but I progress slowly. How do you usually deal with editing?

[Muirium]

Try the same things you do when writing, reading, editing and thinking in your first language. (Which I'm hoping isn't spam!)

[fohat]

To be fair, English is a difficult language since it has been stitched together from various northern European languages over the millennia.

That said, my ex-wife has been a magazine editor for decades and her career has literally been re-re-re-working what is in front of her.

[qukezy]

Try the same things you do when writing, reading, editing and thinking in your first language. (Which I'm hoping isn't spam!)

A good tip! What do you mean by spam? For me it's a bunch of senseless messages or comments with links to scam services and nothing more. My message hardly resembles any of those I mentioned.

[Muirium]

You're right. It is.

Almost all the spam regularly posted here comes as *edits* to existing messages. The spammer has some favourite topics (copy pasted from elsewhere), including "mechanical mice" and writing college papers. These posts are then stealthily edited later, when no one's looking, to add the spam links. You had me and Kbdfr triggered, that's all.

[qukezy]

You're right. It is.

Almost all the spam regularly posted here comes as *edits* to existing messages. The spammer has some favourite topics (copy pasted from elsewhere), including "mechanical mice" and writing college papers. These posts are then stealthily edited later, when no one's looking, to add the spam links. You had me and Kbdfr triggered, that's all.

Oh, sorry.

[Muirium]

Hey, no worries. You've nothing to apologise for. The cynical spammers are the only ones at fault.

[Findecanor]

To be exact, I can't identify and correct mistakes, and I mean not only spelling and grammar. I spend a lot of time on learning various sources of information, but I progress slowly. How do you usually deal with editing?

It is easy to be blind to your own writing mistakes. That's just a side-effect of how humans read things they have already read before.

I think one approach could be to re-number sections in random order on a print-out to proof-read the sections in another order than in which they had been written.
But the best approach might be to find another student in a similar situation and make a deal to proof-read each others' papers.

[finnsmith]

Im totally agree with you. I was lucky that I studied with a friend and we always double-checked each other for mistakes and it worked great.

[kbdfr]

I like the idea of locking, i.e. prevent from editing, posts which look somehow suspicious. This way honest authors’ free speech is respected but spammers will spend some time trying to figure out why they can’t add spam links when they return at a later time

[Muirium]

Im totally agree with you.

Had a similar feeling about this post. If they're not a spammer, and this is just their way of dropping in and saying hello, then all's good. And if they are the spammer: he's having to up his game, and it's still not quite working! Welcome to the new DT.

[finnsmith]

Welcome to the new DT. https://www.spam.com

Thanks for your kind words sir
___________________________________

Mod edit:
Edited the spam url added into Mu’s quote and, of course banned the poster

[Muirium]

That old sneak again. He knows we’ve got his number!



Busted!