Custom Article Writing: Good Prices - High Quality - Perfect Grammar

Perhaps you can stop acting like a child for two seconds.

You want to be a professional, yet you don't carry yourself like one. My only gripe, as per my post, is the fraudulent advertising. Other than that, I don't care what you charge or what you do--that's for your clients to decide on.

 

jhmattern, DeniseJ and ILoveWriting, just admit you were wrong and let's all hug and kiss one another
Can't we all get along ??? (not my actual words - they are somebody else's!)

I don't see aletheides thread as false advertising. He may think that he has perfect grammar.
So what if you have found some errors in some of his articles???!!! Don't we all make mistakes???

Are you sure that all the articles that you girls wrote never had any grammatical mistakes???

Please cut him so slack. The guy's trying to find some work here. I do believe he is a good writer. I read his samples.

What ILoveWriting did really STINKS!

 

You hit on my point. We ALL make mistakes. Saying you have perfect grammar implies--obviously--no mistakes. All I'm saying is to use GREAT, GOOD, or whatever.

Advertising in the writing world is a little different. Language counts.

Like I said, I'm not concerned with anything else. If the price is right, I'm sure his clients are satisfied. Either way, it's not my business.

 

Saying you won't give someone the time of day because they happen to differ from your opinion is quite childish. Maybe you need to read what all of us are saying to you and think about it a bit.

I'm going to agree with MarketJunction and touch on the fact that, if you are going to advertise yourself as a professional than you need to behave like one. Trashing another person because they happened to pick up on a few mistakes in your articles isn't professional, it's downright ridiculous.

 

ablaye, I respect you and everything, so I hope you know that.

But I believe several of us already acknowledged that we, like everyone else, make mistakes. Not a single one of us claims to be "perfect" in all of our writing. The problem is false advertising here, and what's really terrible about it is that it's being done in a community where a lot of his potential clients would be non-native English speakers who wouldn't pick up on the discrepencies between the promises and the delivery. Taking advantage of that for a marketing purpose is wrong in every way. I even acknowledged that his writing isn't bad... it's just a problem with the claim and the attitude.

If any of us claim to be perfect some day, by all means call us on it. We'd deserve the same criticism if that were the case. But as of now, it's not.

 

I hate to chime in here but I've read through this whole thread and read some of aletheides samples, and now I feel I need to.

I can agree on the fact that his grammar is not perfect, but did he honestly mean "perfect"? I'm sure he knew in his own mind that not all of his writing is perfect, but he rather used the word as an adjective to describe his writing. If he said his writing was "good" it would have been less convincing to possible clients. Maybe he wasn't taking the word in a literal sense but rather using it to make his writing sound superior to others. Now your going to say, "Well his writing isn't as good as mine and he's getting more clients." Or maybe you would say, "That's false advertising", which I have heard a few of you say so far. I'd say to just deal with it. A possible client should be smart enough to actually read his articles and content first before hiring him. Anybody who is a native English speaker knows that there are grammatical errors in his sentences. What it really comes down to is how his possible clients will interpret his "perfect" grammar when they read the articles. That's all that really matters here. If they don't care about some incorrect grammar, then what is really the big argument here?

Also, I don't believe ILoveWriting was trying to insult your writing ability but she was rather trying to help you out. She didn't make it sound that way though. That's why people can get into these long arguments over the Internet for whatever reasons. You can't hear the tone the person is speaking in and thus you can't always interpret what they are actually trying to say.

 

Perhaps. But as I said before, the real problem with this is that a lot of the potential clients looking for content writing services here aren't native English speakers, and they hire them, because they can't write well enough for an English speaking audience on their own. That's what makes it even more misleading. Also, most native English speakers don't even come close to knowing what perfect grammar is.

No matter how he meant it, "perfect" is already an adjective and carries a very specific definition of being flawless. False advertising is fraud, and one wrong client not happy with his work down the road could go after him for it. There are other options than saying it's "good", but at least his samples would have backed it up, and he wouldn't have gotten any heat in the first place.

Since the OP obviously didn't care enough to learn from his mistake, hopefully at least someone else will. Just don't advertise your services as something that they're not.

 

Actually, I was providing my thoughts out of concern. If the original poster is in the USA, he's violating advertising laws. Please see the FTC for more information.

But you are right. It's up to his clients to care.

If he's charging 1-2 cents per word, I think they will be satisfied and not care about all this hubbub.

 

I think one of the problems is that marketers and writers see things differently. The writers seem to be taking the word "perfect" a little too literally, IMO. Marketers and advertisers use hyperbole all the time because that gets attention and I think that was his intention.

If he was really trying to mislead people, he wouldn't have provided any samples. It's not like someone is going to read that he says he has "perfect grammar" and hire him on the spot. If they do then they are pretty naive and deserve what they get. All that aside, I agree that he probably shouldn't say, "perfect grammar," just in case, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. I think it would have been better to PM him for constructive criticism since he obviously isn't trying to mislead anyone.

He wrote an article for me at a really low price with really good content. He knows his stuff in the area that he writes about and the price was unbeatable. I didn't check it closely for grammatical errors yet but the ideas themselves are worth more than he charged.

 

Well, I'm both a marketer and a writer, and any way you cut it "perfect" means "perfect", and using it in advertising a product or service is false advertising. As Jason already said, that's illegal in many countries. Providing samples also doesn't show something, and naivity has nothing to do with it... many people hiring writers here don't speak English as their first language and have no way of knowing. They trust the person selling the work, and taking advantage of that fact is simply wrong. PMing someone doesn't solve the problem, when the potential clients are still going to be taken advantage of by not seeing the problem.

It's great that you're happy with his work. We didn't say that he was a "bad" writer; actually the contrary. The problem is, and has always been, with deceptive advertising.

 

I'm sure it must feel like there is a battle line drawn here, but the constructive critism is part of life in internet marketing. This is the response that one of my earliest offerings recieved, and it WAS in the Services area.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=128279

It can be rough, but hopefully everyone will come away from this particular skirmish relatively unscathed.

Rebecca

 

Great example, Rebecca, of exactly how a writer should be able to handle constructive criticism. And learning from the experience to grow and be a better writer is what it's all about in this profession.

 

I know quite a few people (not necessarily writers) who could take a few pointers from that thread. You're one classy businesswoman, Rebecca. Thanks for sharing!

 

Why do writers feel the need to bash other writers in public???
I am glad I am not a writer. I would not be able to handle all this well-intentioned "criticism".
Are all writers that mean???

Btw, jhmattern, are you single?

 

lol It's not "mean". It's "tough love". And honestly it's something nearly every successful writer goes through at some point. Not all take it well, but if they take something important from it, it will always help them down the road.

lol Why? Planning on becoming a stalker, neighbor?

 

Not a stalker. More like a fan.
Beauty and brains usually don't come in the same package. But you got both.

 

lol Thanks. I'm flattered.

 

You should have nominated her in the "hottest girl on DP" thread. Denise knows all about that

 

I don't think it's writers. It's people in the professional world. I know in marketing, you're constantly looking at what others are doing and working to steal--I mean convince--clients to come to your company.

It's the business world not lunch hour at high school.

 

lol Jason's right. It just sounds funny when it's spelled out like that.

Thanks Brian. Yes, in the Six Figure Challenge we're running, we've already informed Denise that we expect her to use that "feminine charm" to net us some blog coverage. j/k