Comparison of the seven sites – notes for Task A and feedback in part 3 of the lesson. Title of site 1. Main mistakes of grammar and spelling. 2. English appropriacy. Abbey Bookkeeping spelled wrongly in site name and name Formal tone is bookeeping of service. relatively well services Missing apostrophes on years, redundant maintained but marred apostrophes on P45’s. by casual idiom “take Blueberries Comparative comparative “more simpler”. them in our stride.” Incomplete sentence starting with which. US English (spellchecker) – staffs. Guide lines as two words. Pronoun reference – take them in our stride (people or tax returns?). Careless punctuation e.g. no ‘ ‘ around yes. Over-‐capitalisation: Office.
Celtic cement and gd-‐graphics barry Peaches
GD graphics: Web site and website – latter is correct. It’s/its classic error. Run-‐on clause sentence. Celtic cement (designed by GD graphics and on their site as an example): Inconsistent use of numbers e.g. 1 and one. Missing comma, crushers, climate change. Wildly overcapitalised e.g. words that ‘look’ important like Replacements. Jeff Lewis Webiste (from a website designer). Text under design portfolio poster and web needs bullets or rewrite, just garble. About page several errors e.g. for mentioned not strawberries aforementioned. I recognises, I specialises – patois?
3. Effect on customer. Dire. This is an accountancy service where customer expects (and pays for) meticulous accuracy. Any educated person would be put off using a service like this. Name of service has connotational links to Abbey National – they should be protesting too! Tone is appropriate but This is a website annoying rhetorical designed to give an question in bold. impession, a good one. These apparently small errors and stylistic irritations add up to off-‐ putting annoyance and detract from the argument. Chatty tone is ‘writing It’s the client’s as speaking’ – needs responsibility to provide higher level of correct copy, but what if formality. the designer can’t produce his own correct copy???
4. Causes of problems Writer of site copy has poor written English. Probably written by one person as mistakes are consistent. Site may have been built by consultant, in which case firm should have proof-‐read copy. A spell and grammar checker would have found many of these issues.
Poor proof-‐reading at approval stage. Most of these errors would not be detected by a spellchecker, unfortunately, so human knowledge required.
Self-‐designed site – needed proof-‐reader.
Bluegg Lemons
PAT cleaning Plums
Great barn Country Guest House Limes Cheapcoverz Oranges
“If want that chat over a coffee”. Who? You? Imnprobable quotes: “hello Décor … “ Bingo! Erm, the company name is spelled ‘Dekor’ “They just didn’t realise.” Realise what? Spell and grammar checkers would eliminate few of these errors – literate human required.
Style here is worse than the grammar “It sounds like an excuse to sit around drinking coffee and chatting.”
Spelling and grammar mistakes virtually implode the page e.g. relay=rely, lay=lie (several times on the rolling strapline and repeated throughout, also on the publicity card Charlotte found). One sentence is garble “We will offer you to conduct a fre of charge and obligations survey of your premises, creating a service that is perfectly suited to your establishment.” Over-‐capitalisation e.g. give = Five, beaches, Antiques. Yet a capital is missing from Millennium Stadium. For and many shops? Punctuation almost non-‐existent – reads like a chain of key words and phrases, not even bulleted. Chav number plate website name – cheapcoverz. Overcapitalised everywhere. Use of ‘like’ instead of such as. Your you’re (twice on these pages alone). Missing full stops and commas. Bucketload as two words. A redundant ‘and’
Why US? Invites ridicule using the capitals. Phrases such as “Unlike many other companies” make careless, if funny generalisations.
Another designer site selling its wares. Jokey English makes terrible impression, especially as errors pervade throughout the extensive portfolio (we checked – look at the Swansea BID site) If you can’t clean up your English, can you clean up my house?
Designers design own site … but can’t write English for toffee. Mmmh. Need to import a writer or employ a jolly good proof-‐reader.
Sadly this site looks to have been written by a non-‐native speaker of English. No excuses though: the web exposes all.
Hard to say as there are so few complete sentences.
Impression is of a non-‐ In-‐house job professional approach. Is your room going to be as untidy as this?
Bombastic style does not inspire confidence in the product, especially as they do not practise anything they preach.
Dire effect. Designers of book covers who write like this? You pays ya money and ya really gets ya choice cheap!
Looks like an in-‐house job written by a geek and proof-‐ read by nobody.