Can a writer who is not a native English speaker proofread essays written in English?

I really have no idea what you are trying to make me understand here. When did I say all human beings were the same? What does writing ability of a person have to do with his/her race?


You racist fool! What do these differences have to do with academic writing? You mean it's okay for non-Americans to be delusional fools?


I did not "insult" you. Even I am an ESL writer, and many on this very forum have commented on my English language skills (few said that my English was generally acceptable and much better than that of an average ESL speaker). I think I have done a lot of work to improve my English and I am still doing it. I know it is difficult to be proficient as native speakers in a foreign language, but still it is POSSIBLE. It is IMPOSSIBLE in case one does not accept that his/her language skills need serious work.


Doh!

I wrote:
My friend, try to respect others, whether it is in the same or other industry. All fingers in your hands are not equal, and yet each of them has distinct function and place. All human beings on this earth are not same. Some are American, some are British, and some are Spanish. Human beings do not have control on what colour they have, what language the speak, and for cultural and other reasons how good or bad they might be in language proficiency.

You said:


My reply: The discussion in this threat clearly shows a divide between native-Americans and non-native speakers. I referred to that issue here. "What does writing ability of a person have to do with his/her race?" - the answer is: the example of fingers in a hand is a metaphor to explain how every writer in the industry, irrespective of their native-nonnative stance, has their own value.

I wrote: Please respect these differences.

You retorted:


My reply: You are at large to call anyone 'racist' or a 'fool' - it's your right; but you have to consider the impact of such utterances. We live in a world of diversity. A community that will accommodate diversity (including delusional fools, idiots, black, white, native, non-native etc) will work better. I asked readers to respect this diversity and differences.

I know what "you wrote" and what "I said", but I still don't get what "you replied". LMAO!

I wrote:
There is no credit in insulting people. This kind of behaviour does not pay. It is easy to type the word 'idiot'. Once you type it in this post - it remains and it hurts. Everyone reads them, but that makes you silly. What is the meaning of education if what you write hurts others?

Respecting others will increase your self-respect.

You replied:


My reply: I am happy what you say. Cheer up! Thank you - you say you did not insult me, and apologies if I wrongly said you did; but in general there is a tendency among people here to insult. Sometimes, little words like "fool", or even "you racist fool" do not always mean insults; I understand that. But a good number of people have recurrently been using words that look down upon others - including me.

Seriously, Marsvictor, where did you come from? I can't believe you belong to this world. Why are all concepts you talk about foreign to you?

... foreign to "marsvictor" or "amnateeb"?


More time, more education, more maturity, more diversity will help you. Don't worry - you will okay, if you remain positive.

You are not okay, by the way.

Sorry, that should have been - "you will be okay" not "you will okay".

1


A. I know what "you wrote"

This is where the problem is: I do not think you understand English language. Or even if you do, you actually do not understand the meanings. You read words, but fail to understand the meaning of the sentence, or you manage to read the sentence but your comprehension is below the marks. I saw many teachers who fail to grab the meaning of paragraphs; and by the time they go to the next paragraph; they miss the link with the previous paragraph. In such case, the student becomes the sufferer (or the victim). To read is actually to read in between the lines.

I will examine the above with my first post in this thread, and show how the whole discussion has sidetracked the main issue.

On 27 Jan 2012, anakelson posted:

Can anyone tell if a writer that is not a native English speaker will be able to proof read essays?

The question seemed very catchy to me because throughout my life (I am 47), I have been seeing proof-reading. How many percent of the authors who proofread are actually native speakers? How many percent of the people who speak English are actually native English speakers?

Quoting the above question, I replied in the following way - and I began to watch the dilapidated level of comprehension of some of the native English speakers here. I replied:

"Of course. I find many teachers whose first language is English are so shabby in their language. Although generally a person who speaks English from birth is supposed to have better knowledge of English language, this isn't true always."

Surprisingly, the first person who put a comment after my writing there, posed the following comment:

you're from the Philippines, I presume?
take your spam to essaychat.

What impression shall I have about the person who placed the above remarks? Lets anlyse my reply first.

I stated - "of course", which means - obviously non-English speakers can do the proof-reading. The second sentence of my answer explains my experience with poor native English speakers in the role of teaching. Please understand that this is an experience. This experience has an assessment component. [Let me say, in the British universities - I would say - over 40 percent teachers teach MBA classes without having a Masters Degree. Education is simply a business here.] See the third sentence of my answer - in that I explain the natural supremacy of the native English speakers with a contrast at the end.

Now when I posted this answer - obviously I did not think much about it. I just wrote and posted. After I read the comment of the person (as above), I was both shocked and disgusted.

Forums are interesting because they provide avenues to express and at the same time avenues to discover contemporary concerns of others, and your memories get linked to issues. And that is how forums are learning places.

One may be a native speaker or ESL teacher, but what if - he is just a dull headed person, with poor analytical ability, or perhaps does not accommodate others' views, experiences, and fail to read in between the lines?

1


B. I know what ... what "I said",

If you want to say something in the forum, you have to understand what you read. What is 'reading'? Think about it. But let me give some instances. Shakespeare wrote about 400 years before. Till today his plays are read. There are many ways people read his works. But the way they were read 200 years before are not read 400 years later, and nor will be read 800 years after. One approach to reading in the context of present time in various contexts has come to be known as 'presentist reading'. The trans-textual name of Macbeth in Japan is Throne of Blood, and India is Maqbool. Hamlet was named The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas in China. Taming of the Shrew was named Frivolous Wife in Korea, and Othello was named Omkara in India. You can see that Shakespeare's plays passed the boundaries of meanings attached within Europe, and are adapted, and appropriated for different meanings by many playwrights and for various audiences. Do you think understanding Shakespeare without understating the varied contexts in which they are being dramatised is possible?

If, therefore, you do not understand when you read, it is highly unlikely that what you will say (or said) was off the mark. [You can now review our previous dialogues to check back if you really understood what I wrote in the first place, and then re-claim if you knew what you said]

1


C. LMAO
Another obvious problem is that if you think that the top hole (i.e. mouth) and the bottom hole (i.e., as in LMAO) both have similar functions, then your brain does not function well. You cannot use the bottom hole for the same function as your mouth is supposed to perform. With this analogy, think about the location of your brain in the body. Is it in the skull? I do not find the answer - but I think it is not in your skull, rather somewhere near your bottom. [You might like to read this paragraph several times to understand].

This is the statement I have a problem with. You see, a new customer (and a good majority of them usually are) will think that this is part of industry norm and practice because they rely on those who have experience in the industry and they can only find them here. However, if you pointed out that a few ESLs are not eligible to write it would be much appreciated. For example, I do not think Marsvictor can be expected to produce work that can be assessed by a professor in a third rate community college. Usually such writers' emails will start "I am the writer for many years and several customers likes my work....." If a customer cannot spot this, then they should not be in school in the first place and in fact being scammed would be a good starting point for them in the learning process.

+1

unfortunately, many customers cannot spot this, and writers like MarsVictor are going to be the last ones to downplay their language ability (which hypothetical disclaimer, promoted by the late WB, remains a hilarious fantasy in the capable hands of FW) to a potential customer.

btw, MarsVictor, you never answered my question: are you from the Philippines, or aren't you?

Marsvictor, can't you at least try to be understandable? I really can't understand what you write. You are not able to write a single coherent sentence in English.


See, this is what I can read and understand, and then laugh at what it is written about. LOL!


Hell no! I can't tolerate reading your posts for even once. Seriously, Marsvictor, you are really annoying.

Marsvictor: You really sound like someone who has been living in Germany...

forumregulator, editor75, amnateeb, exact

I read all your posts.

Really? I wasn't expecting that.

Sure

Does that mean I get an answer?

One word.........speechless

Marsvictor: Just waiting for your response!?

What do I need to reply mate?

Two points:

1. Your English isn't bad at all; it might even be fairly characterized as fluent. But you're not even remotely capable of "proofreading" English writing for this very reason illustrated by your use of the word eligible in a way that it simply cannot be used because it is not a synonym for capable or able. (That does not mean that it doesn't have any relation or that it couldn't be the correct answer to an SAT-type of question asking for the closest thing to a synonym among other choices that are even worse, because it could.) Proofreading requires exactly the skill that even relatively good ESL writers lack and that even the very best of them acquire last. You may have a good vocabulary and better grammar than many American students, but if you were to proofread their work, you'd only be correcting mistakes that are typical of American students and substituting different mistakes that are completely uncharacteristic of almost any American writer at almost any level. In an ordinary context, I'd say that you speak and write very good English; in the context of being able to proofread American writing without adding your own mistakes, (even) you simply do not, by any stretch of imagination.

Marsvictor's English skills, in particular, is so incredibly far from being able to proofread English that it's unbelievably presumptuous, delusional even, to start this thread whose title suggests, rhetorically, that the answer is "yes" and that he believes it applies to him. You're not even close to English language writing fluency, let alone to the ability to "proofread" the English writing of even an average American college freshman or high school senior.

2. Only a very few ESLs ever learn English well enough to proofread a a native English speaker but I'd be the very last person to suggest that it's impossible. My father and uncle were both German-born (Jews) who escaped Nazi Germany in 1938 and spent the war in England, attending Oxford. They both became bona-fide expert English language grammarians capable of proofreading the English writing of anybody and at any level. The other principal influence on my English language writing skills was a high school English teacher who was a Chinese immigrant but whose knowledge of English was so good that even my father wasn't aware of some of the subtlties he taught me and that ever enabled me to "teach" my father anything about English. So, my English language expertise is entirely a function of learning directly from three "ESL" mentors. In fact, I never learned anything about English from any native speaker at all.

So, in principal, the answer to the rhetorical title of this thread is "yes"; but it simply doesn't apply to any ESL on this particular forum, especially the one who was delusional enough to start this thread using that title.

[Correction] I meant Cambridge, not Oxford.

No it was Harvard (in Izrael). lolz

Leave it to this idiot to focus on that and to throw in a little anti-Semitism.

You dont like Germans do you? Anti-German racist.

This is it.

The next topic can even be more interesting and useful. How to learn English (for Marsvictor and stu4), and/or to improve English language skills (for other ESLs, including me)?

Here's a little free "proofreading" for the person who obviously considers himself capable of proofreading the English of others:


The real point here, other than your being totally delusional, that is, is that practically every single one of these mistakes is characteristic of ESL issues and not of the ordinary "writing" or "grammar" issues of native English writers in need of correction. Nobody here is anti-ESL learners or even anti-ESL writers who aren't delusional about their English skills and nobody is criticizing you about anything except your belief that your English language skills are good enough to write English professionally, let alone to "proofread" the English writing skills of others. I've never had a problem competing fairly and good-naturedly with any other comptetent professional writer; only with ESLs who are totally delusional, or dishonest, or dishonest because they're so delusional that they believe their English writing skills are so good that they don't need to be honest about being ESL to their prospective customers.


If that's your logical conclusion from my saying that my parents escaped Nazi Germany, "English writing skills" are hardly the main reason that anybody would be crazy ever to pay you to produce anything remotely intellectual. For the record, being German is a nationality not a "race" and I have nothing against any Germans who weren't Nazis and who don't share Nazi ideology.

Incidentally, I haven't seen any further posts from your friend "mre" ever since I uploaded and posted the evidence of my law degree in response to his conclusion that I was lying about mine and I suggested that it's now his turn to post his because it's obvious to me that his claims of having one are total BS. Don't worry, though: I'm not expecting an apology from you for calling me a fraud in that regard, either.

With your degree from anonymous and weak college nobody bother to answer.

Ladies and gentlemen: Another ESL writer who thinks he's qualified to take money for writing in English even though he can't compose a simple short sentence without at least a few glaring mistakes.

And we have no evidence that your friend "mre" earned a degree from any law school, as he claimed, let alone from one any "better" than mine.

OBSERVER, not writer idiot.

Your college degree is as week as peddler was. You cannot even get hired as type-writer in real law office.

It's one thing for people who are actually part of this industry to spend our time on this forum. You really expect anybody to believe that you have no personal involvment in this industry but choose to come to this forum of all of those on the vast Internet just to fight with and insult people you don't know? Even your life can't possibly be that empty, right?

I realize this would be a tremendous stretch, asking you for a substantive comment or opinion on the actual topic of a thread discussion instead of your usual nasty personal attacks, but what's your response to any of the points made about ESL writers and proofreading English? You know, since you're such an interested "observer" of this industry.

Many ESL writers are much smarter then American or UK writers. They have advanced degree. US writers with Europe roots like you have no knowledge other then what they read on Wikipedia and such. You take article, rewrite it and claim its original custom piece. Give you topic that calls for original research - and you lost.

Why, exactly, would you assume that an American-born writer (also) with a college and a graduate degree would be incapable of doing research?

Why would you presume to make disparaging comments about the research or writing abilities of any person whose actual writing you've never seen or read?

You've previously admitted to never having read a single sentence that I've ever written on anything beyond my forum posts, yet you continually call my work terrible and accuse me of "rewriting" instead of writing. Even the owner of the British-based essay company that I very publicly accused of ripping me off here referred to my writing as "always excellent" long after I made those public accusations.

How are your accusations any different from someone being racist and what could your motivation possibly be if you have absolutely no personal financial interest in this industry?

On what basis, other than my being American-born and American-educated do you presume to challenge my writing or researching skills?

If you have absolutely no financial involvment in this industry as you claim, (other "then" as an observer), what, exactly, is your interest in this industry and in this forum?

All fair questions and I'm just asking.

Coz level of education in USA is much lower then in other West country (Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, Russia, UK, China, India and more). You have program called 'No Rewriter left behind' so your level is dumbed down by default.


Pull out BS and propaganda of half educated with weak degree.

How is your assumption that no Americans are as smart or as well-educated as their European counterparts any different from the prejudices that you accuse Americans of having toward all ESL writers?


But why would you choose to police this particular industry of all the possible industries in the world? Why not phony online charities or counterfeit goods dealers or medical and surgical and nutritional quackery sites, or any of the nearly countless other much more widespread and important world problems than bad academic essay writing? Wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to devote your efforts to exposing the many online diploma mills that issue phony academic degrees than worrying about the credentials of such a small handfull of writers in this infinitesimally small online niche community?

Just out of curioisty, since you say you "don't" work in this industry at all, what do you do professionally for a living?

Obviously, I'm asking all this rhetorically, because it's just not remotely believable that you're here without a financial interest in this industry, but if you can refute that assumption with an intelligent response, please do. Until then, nobody here believes that you're merely an interested and unbiased beneficent "observer" whose only interest is in saving the world from bad academic essay writers.

Now you're sounding like WB*.


Do you point this out every time it's true, or just when it happens to be true about someone who's attacking you?

If you go back to some of my earliest posts here from the Fall of 2008, you'll see that I asked the exact same question of the person to whom you're obviously referring. I also posted at that time that one of my employers asked me to stop arguing with her here because she defended them against untrue allegations, so I did.

Poetry to ears and eyes Lolz

Stu, you never answered my questions despite still being active on this thread since I asked them. They're perfectly fair, simple, and very logical questions, so why don't you just provide a direct response?

I never say I had nothing to do with this industry. DilusionalWriter.

You mean delusional? One would expect that anybody who's such an authority on and protector of educational standards across the globe would spell and write a little better than the skills evident in every single one of your posts in any thread where you post.

If you're not a writer and not associated with any essay-writing company, what is your connection to this industry that you obviously care about so passionately?

Here is difference - you care about utopia, dilusion, and package. Student care about good product and not wasting money. You can be eloquent and package can look nice but if product is broken then they dont care about package. You sell them package I tell them what they should / not buy.


Never said no association with essay-writing company. Im Inernet Warrior.