No question at all

[Sharion]

I've seen so many posts asking over and over to explain the rejection. Mine was clear as a bell. And easily fixed. Two issues:

1. Wee bit of trouble with my word processor creating apostrophes that turn into hieroglyphs for others, even as an rtf file.

2. The word "I". Even though the majority of the article was third person, I did inject first person into one small segment. We shall not use a single "I". We shall not use a single "I". 100 times on the blackboard and we won't do it again

[HayleyWriter]

Hi Sharion,

You're right - most good writers can see the mistakes once reading the reasons for the rejection. No-one likes getting a rejection, but it shows a professional attitude to look at your article with the rejection notice and then find your errors. We all do get rejections from time to time, even writers who have been here for ages, but there is always a good reason. Ed tries to point us in the right direction, especially considering his lack of time, but the rest is up to us. Now, the next part is remembering these errors and NEVER give Ed another article with the same errors. That way you show improvement and Ed is less likely to ban you from the site.

It was lovely to pop into this forum and see someone praising instead of complaining! Well done.

Kind regards,

Hayley
P.S. Hope you get your notebook issue fixed!
P.S.S. I did the same thing in my early days here - One single "I" sentence slipped through and I got a rejection for it too. You are not alone! Now, I do a "find" search on every article for I, my, we, our, and us BEFORE I submit to our faithful Ed.

[Sharion]

I've got an idea. I can write a small software program to look for bad words like "I" and make sure apostrophes and quotes aren't the wrong kind. It can be my little helper.

I think I know how the bad apostrophes got into the first article. It was something I'd written previously, ages ago in a different word processor. I copy/pasted it into my current word processor (AppleWorks) and rewrote the article to submit it here. Then saved it as an rtf. So it went through several transformations.

The second submission I wrote this week, specifically for here. I checked it after the first rejection to see if it also had the bad apostrophes and it didn't. Checked it for "we", "I", etc. and it was clean It's still in the queue and if it passes, the toast is to Celeste for being the inspiration. She inspired both of the submissions still in the queue.

Fingers crossed. Won't resubmit the first until I see what happens with the others, in case there are other issues I need to know about.

[HayleyWriter]

Good luck with your submissions! Celeste is definitely a legend and helps many writers here.

[Ed]

Hi Sharion,

I'm so glad you can identify the cause of the unusual marks in your article. This happens occasionally, and it's usually frustrating for the author because they don't even see these characters as anything but what they are supposed to be. I didn't check your other article, but your graphic design article is showing these characters, too. I wanted to wait to see if you understood the reason for rejection, and you do. If you have any other questions about this, I'm sure we can figure out a solution.

I fiddled with the settings for encoding, but no luck on this side of things. You might try submitting an article written in your current word processor to see if that eliminates the issue.

Thanks,
Ed

[Sharion]

Ed,

The two other articles were created in my current word processor from scratch, no cut and paste. They were created then exported via Save As... one into an rtf, and the other I don't recall exactly what I did, but eventually it became a plain txt file.

Usually something like this will show up if it's pasted into the program I use to create web pages from a word processor, but that's showing clear. I have access to a Windows computer, so I'm going to try opening them over there and see if I can expose the hieroglyphs. If I can find a way to expose them so that I can see them, then I will know beyond a doubt that they are zapped before uploading again.

Let me work on this a bit. I've got some ideas.

You are very sweet, Ed! Thank you for your patience.

Sharion

[Sharion]

Bingo! Both Wordpad and Notepad on Windows exposed the hieroglyphs. I knew I could count on that other computer... LOL!

My sweetie and I are like that TV commercial. I am Mac and he is Windows. We are fully networked so I can shoot the file over there. Now to figure out the best way to create a file here that is happy over yonder...

(Interesting note: MS Word didn't see hieroglyphs.)

[Sharion]

Ed,

I reworked the graphic designer article and uploaded it.

There was an easy way to do it and a hard way. The easy way would have been to just rewrite it in a different program. I chose the hard way which should be easier in the long run

1. Write the article in my favorite word processor, set at whatever font is easiest for me to read (Appleworks)
2. Save it as a .txt file
3. Open the .txt file in a different program that checks for "smart" or "educated" quotes and fixes them (TextWrangler)
4. Run my own custom software program that asks me:
a. Did you run spellcheck?
b. Did you straighten the quotes?
c. Then it checks to make sure I didn't use we, us or I
d. It converts the text to Arial 12
e. It converts the .txt to .rtf and makes the title bold

THEN (fingers crossed) it's ready for upload! LOL!

One issue I found with Appleworks is the Preference setting "Smart Quotes". No matter what I did to disable it, those rotten buggers kept creeping in.

My custom article checker/converter will probably grow like my custom spam filter did. Every time something rotten sneaks thru, a new rule gets written

Sharion

[Sharion]

I've reworked the other article still in the queue and re-uploaded it - title not mentioned here as I don't want anyone snagging it while I'm trying to get it approved Was waiting to see if the graphics article passed the hieroglyph test but since I haven't heard, went ahead and hopefully fixed the other one, too. Did a bit of a rewrite on the other one as well removing a few offending items

Discovered another interesting anomaly. The word count varies from program to program by just a few words. How can different programs come up with different word counts? I tested a few theories but didn't come up with an answer.

My custom built article checker now counts the words and creates a one third summary file for me. Also checks a couple of words for consistency that I tend to not be consistent on.

All that's left is to wait for the verdict.... (grit teeth and hang on)

[Sharion]

And the verdict is Wow! Accepted! I am in awe. I'd say I was lost for words but... I'm never lost for words

Thank you, Ed! You are truly a dreamboat!

Wow! I was totally expecting bad commas or bad structure or bad something. Wow!

(Off to proof one of the articles I hadn't submitted yet...)

[Ed]

Sharion,

Thanks so much for taking such care to identify and eliminate the problem. Hopefully your experience can help other authors who have this problem in the future.

That's interesting about the program that you wrote. I usually suggest that authors follow a checklist, but you've found a way to automate the process.

Ed

[Sharion]

Ed,

Automation is good It provides consistency and takes the guesswork out of moving it from my desk to yours. I still do the keywords and summary manually, however, and sometimes edit the excerpt to offer more info of what else follows.

One of my many alter egos is a programmer of shareware games so... You'd be amazed at how many alter egos there are, many of them have come out in the pieces I've written. I know every one of those subjects intimately.

Another subject I know first hand I doubt I can ever write about as it would create too much competition for me out there, LOL! Based on some of the threads I've read it would sell like hot cakes! (Is hot cakes one word or two, I wonder? My eyeballs say one.)

Happy Ho Ho's!

Sharion