When you're part of a writing community, such as EzineArticles.com, there comes a time when you're asked to copy edit a friend or family member's work. This recently was the case for me when I accepted a request to review a friend's magazine.
After an hour of review, I was surprised by the sheer number of grammatical errors and attempted to negotiate how to constructively help my friend. There were three stages to our conversation:
Denial - "You're too strict," she said.
Anger - Frustrated and feeling cornered, "I was never formally educated in school" she spat out.
Bargaining - "Don't worry about punctuation or sentence structure," she told me. "Just look for spelling and misused words."
Now I was confused. Punctuation and sentence structure are part of good grammar!
