User:Musiconeologist/proto-

This page is meant for my own use, like the sandbox. I'm expecting to use it as a workspace for assorted notes, proto-thoughts and proto-drafts that don't yet merit their own page and aren't ready to be moved to their intended destinations.

My immediate purpose in creating it is to give myself somewhere to make notes for a couple of user subpages I'm thinking of writing. (Or possibly, just additional paragraphs for my user page. That's the point: I don't know yet.)

isn't

 * mechanical application of rules
 * arbitrary breaking of rules
 * imposing your own preferred style
 * believing the grammar you were taught at school
 * changing the intended meaning of the text
 * changing things before you've understood why they're as they are
 * changing things without understanding why you're changing them
 * changing one instance of something that needs to be consistent throughout the text

is

 * making the style self-consistent
 * invisible to the reader
 * properly documented

skills

 * reading the text from the point of view of someone who's never seen it before and is unfamiliar with the subject
 * sensitivity to shades of meaning produced by different word choices
 * knowing when to disregard a rule and why you're doing so