I like to be humble but let's just cut the crap and jump straight to the point, I'm mad decent at grammar. I mean commas, apostrophes, Proper Nouns, I've got it all. I know how to spell words that aren't accomodations and I almost always use the right there. So naturally my brother seeks out my help when he writes papers.
I don't mind helping a brother out. I mean who doesn't want to read 80 pages on practical protestant theology? I suppose this is how my family felt when I spent 2 years studying The Blind Owl and surrealism in Iranian literature. Shockingly not the crowdpleaser that you think it would be.
My issue is this. My brother is HORRIBLE at comma use. I love him. He has redeeming qualities for sure. None that I can think of off the top of my head but they're there. Somewhere. And every time he asks me to edit a paper I know I will be suggesting he delete approximately a thousand commas and that gets real, old, real, fast. So I got creative this time.
First I saved the edited version on my desktop...
...and then I saved my individual edits.
He's not perfect.
And there were several issues beyond the commas.
He's honestly lucky that I was able to give such constructive criticism.
At first I was pretty lenient.
Though I did get more frustrated as the paper went on.
I really tried to teach him how to fish and not just hand him a fish, ya know?
But at a certain point I had to call upon the name of the Lord.
Maybe Patrick would listen to Him?
Perhaps I needed to lay hands on him?
At times I felt nothing would work.
I tried appealing poetically,
logically,
and my personal favorite, dramatically.
In fact, some of my comments may have strengthened his resolve.
Eventually I was just downright curious.
And don't get me wrong, this paper did have its bright spots.
But they were outnumbered by the errors so...
I had to lay down some hard truths.
And a few more threats for good measure.
He did get an A so I think the familial abuse and now cyberbullying were worth it.
10/10
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