writing pitfalls

The great big glaring problem I have as a writer is my near-complete inability to notice what I haven't said. This bites me every time I get something proofread. Today's example comes from the comments that my supervisor gave me on a chapter draft—at the end of a long-ish section, he noted "you have done a lot of exposition, but where is the interpretation?" In fact, I remember writing that section as "expose expose expose expose expose draw on exposition to interpret", but I forgot to, well, interpret. It's exactly the sort of thing I probably wouldn't have caught on a second reading, too.

Since I'm still a Ph.D. student, I have a supervisor who can catch these things for me. I will usually be able to find a hapless victim^W^Wwilling volunteer to read shorter pieces for me. But what happens when I get the degree, and am out on my own in the big wide world of academia? How do I write a paper longer than about 2000 words, if I can't rely on my own proofreading skills and can't expect to impose upon others to that extent? This is probably the single biggest obstacle (apart from "will there be a position available for me?") to an academic career for me.

To those of you who are writers of any sort: have you ever found a way to improve your proofreading skills? Do you have the same problem I do? How do you solve / get around it?

letter of the day

Posted not only for the unexpectedness of the content, but the wonderfully British phrasing in the letter.

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Dear [me],

I am writing to you because I believe that you may be entitled to a partial refund of a driving test fee.

For many years, we have charged a higher (i.e. premium) fee for practical driving tests taken on Saturdays than for those conducted during normal working hours. This reflects the higher costs we incur in providing tests outside those hours.

However, we recently discovered a legal problem. It involves the fees we have charged customers when booking practical driving tests to be taken on Saturdays. The problem affects bookings made since 1 November 2005. At that time, the law on driving tests was changed so that we could introduce some service improvements. Unfortunately, a previously unidentified side effect was that we could no longer charge a premium fee for practical driving tests taken on Saturdays. It is only over the last few weeks that this has come to light. The relevant regulations have now been amended so that the premium fee for Saturday tests will again be able to be charged.

We are, however, concerned that we may have unintentionally charged you a higher fee for your driving test than the law at the time allowed. If that is the case, we would like to put it right as quickly as possible.

[boring claim details]

Yours sincerely

Brian Gilhooley
Chief Operating Officer
Driving Standards Agency