Improving the quality of posts.

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Purple said:
I've dyslexia (ironically one of the words I struggle to spell) but I can use spell check and I can read what I've written.
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One of my cousins was doing summer work experience with me and I knew she struggled with dyslexia. I had a set of "standard" type-faces installed on my home network with a font manager on a server distributing them to clients as needed. None of them seemed to help her so we initiated a tiny research project

With her help and the help of resources like those listed below, we found a set of fonts that helped her with her reading and typing. I installed the font set locally on her computer and set up a font substitution table for her for incoming documents to help her read and allowed her to select from her font set to create documents. For outgoing or server-stored documents I did a reverse table. As Johannah's (not her real name) fonts were not stored on other network clients, at the application preferences level I set up font substitution rules for each application so that others accessing the documents Johannah created or / worked on would see text in the "standard" fonts.

We discovered some strange stuff, such as not one size fits all. Applications like Quark Xpress didn't like the fonts we used to substitute in Excel for example and MS Comic Sans was helpful in some cases but not in others. It was a kind of suck-it-and-see job but helpful for Johannah personally and for her productivity (she mentioned that not me!).

Any one rule to help with reading? Avoiding serifs would seem to be it. Well done at facing down a big challenge.

Best Fonts for Dyslexia and Why They Work

An easy way to make text clearer for everyone.
www.weareteachers.com

Dyslexia Friendly Fonts: The Top 10 Fonts for Dyslexia

A dyslexia-friendly font is a font that is easy for people with dyslexia to read. Here are our top dyslexia-friendly fonts: What are the best dyslexia […]
exceptionalindividuals.com

Dyslexia friendly style guide - British Dyslexia Association

This Style Guide provides principles that can help ensure that written material considers the difficulties experienced by some dyslexic people and allows…
www.bdadyslexia.org.uk

I'm sure there are more.

Please bear in mind that Macintosh ii CIs and LCIIs were state-of-the-art back then, the late 80s, early 90s, and 30ish years ago.

MODS: Anything else we could do on AAM? We're already using a Sans Serif font which I hope helps posters who may struggle with dyslexia.
 
I'm in my 50's and have, over the years, managed to just learn to write properly. I think the fact that I read voraciously as a teenager and in my early 20's (before kids and housework took up my spare time) kind of imprinted a lot of structure on my brain. It created the correct synaptic pathways or something.

If it's important, a presentation or speech or something, I find it very useful to write it, go and do something else, then re-read it out loud.

Reading what you write out loud is a very useful way of finding out if the cadence and tone are correct and for that to be the case proper punctuation is critical.
I also think that when it comes to paragraphs if in doubt more is better.
 
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Purple said:
Reading what you write out loud is a very useful way of finding out if the cadence and tone are correct and for that to be the case proper punctuation is critical.
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Recording it onto your phone/other device and listening back may help too. Although I detest the vocal noises I make that are meant to be speech.
 
I know if I get a new grad or someone in their first job at work then I will have to spend the next 6 months training them as to how to spell and word things in a professional business like manner. Now some of that is fine, they are young and inexperienced, but the sheer amount of them who can't spell, depend on spell check (and not checking if it is set at a US version) and not actually reading back what they have written is startling. Frankly, I've seen young people with great leaving certs and degrees who are functionally illiterate.
 
I agree. Nobody reads any more. My children certainly don't read anywhere as much as I did. I blame their parents.
 
My brigade thinks they know it all and they don’t. They keep reminding me I’m the only person in the house without a 3rd level degree. No sweat there, but somebody please inform them that they interrupted their education to attend university. One last hint on speech making and report writing (+ general conversation) as given to me by a hard working public servant from the wrong side of the tracks:- Exact quote from her - “If you’re not prepared to write it down and sign it, don’t say it.”

I don’t think Newman would agree with me.
 
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I has a conversation with the then Dean of the school of Mechanical Engineering in UCD about 15 years ago. He told me never to confuse education with qualification, the latter being what you do for a few years when you are you g in a place like UCD, the former being what you should do every day for your entire life.
 
I walk across Cork’s St-Patrick’s Bridge every week. It’s a draughty and cold spot. In whichever direction I’m walking there is always some plonker walking towards me texting and expects me to give way. I don’t and there’s a collision with a thick 3rd level “alumen” and a former low level public servant. The former college student usually comes out worst and dazzled that somebody refused to concede a couple of square feet to a stupid texter. These plonkers spend so much time on social media that they can’t understand what’s going on anywhere in the real world. And we expect these clowns to hold an intelligible conversation with the likes of @Purple who reads and rereads The New Statesman. They don’t have a chance and are too stupid to know.
 
Peanuts20 said:
In general, I think it would also help if some people on here just relaxed a bit
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Specifically, what people do you have in mind? Before you answer, remember that this forum is called "Letting Off Steam" and have a wild guess what its purpose is. If posters letting off steam in the Letting Off Steam forum, while honouring the overall rules of AAM, is upsetting for you, maybe you need to focus on other fora more suited to you. To keep @Purple and others happy, I've used up my annual EU comma quota in this post.
 
RU de fella I bumpin inta?
 
I don't mean in "letting off steam" but there have been occassions where people on general posts get very smart and judgemental on posters and people who are responding. I've no intention of traipsing through all posts to find examples, it's simply my opinion.
 
It's not that difficult.

One concept / topic per paragraph. One idea / fact per sentence.

One Thought — One Sentence

Some writing rules are so automatic, that you need to see them violated to remember them.
medium.com
 
One of the easiest ways to get thoughts onto virtual paper is to use speech-to-text technology. Speaking to your computer via a suitable app or built-in option in the OS "types" text into a document; Word, Pages, and others have this handy facility as standard.

Type "speech to text" into a browser near you. Add "Windoze", "MacOS", or "other OS" to get platform-specific options.

This may not be helpful for posters whose first language is not English, but for Séan or Sile it may help them exceed their two-finger WPM typing speed.

Apologies for jumping back on topic.
 
I think there's been a marked decline in message board quality over the last decade as people move away from big browser windows and toward small phone screens.
 
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