Several Rejections

[cathleengarvey]

Just had a lovely rejection from the editors:

If you continue to submit content that contains independent clauses inappropriately joined by "and," your articles will be deleted without being reviewed. We have addressed this issue several times in the past and cannot continue to reiterate something that has already been said.

I thought that two independent clauses could be joined by 'and' if they are related? I am forever getting rejected for this and as you can see they are getting tired of me. The article was deleted from the system even though it was a writer pool article that has already closed so I cannot resubmit. I'm guessing that the editor is referring to this paragraph:

Over 100 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and it has become one of the most popular search engines on the internet. Everyone from budding musicians to large international corporations can use the site to promote their product or service, and the introduction of Google ads allows users to monetize their account if they wish to do so. Once you have finished editing your video, the final stage is to upload it to YouTube’s servers, and this can be done using your PC, laptop or any internet-enabled handheld device.

Is it really so bad? I have now developed a fear of the word 'and' and am frantically going through all my articles to delete it entirely. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[JDWhang]

I think it was the editors' New Years Resolution to get super strict. I haven't received a deletion threat yet, but I just got a big batch of rejections over "wordiness" and my use of singular/plural when referring to companies, both of which are things I've never gotten rejections over until now despite having a few hundred articles that are written the same way.

>Once you have finished editing your video, the final stage is to upload it to YouTube’s servers, and this can be done using your PC, laptop or any internet-enabled handheld device.

I'd have definitely used two separate sentences, but the editors also don't like it when you start a sentence with "this" without directly stating what "this" means. It'd become something like "Once you have finished editing your video, the final stage is to upload it to YouTube’s servers. You can upload your video to YouTube's servers using your PC, laptop or any internet-enabled handheld device."

[Lysis]

I'm a software engineer, and I take a beating sometimes over the way I engineer code. But I've never had my ego so bruised as when I stepped into the writing world. lol Man, that's harsh. I've been beat up by editors plenty of times, so I know that feel.

To add to JDWhang's suggestion, I think maybe the first sentence could be made into two also. And yeah, gotta be careful with the "this." They don't like it too much if you don't specify what "this" is.

[Angie H]

If you get Ed as your editor, you'll notice he also doesn't like the word "is". He'll often reject articles for wordiness if he finds it. For me, the paragraph given has three lengthy sentences all in the same format. Try varying your sentence length and style to improve readability.

"Over 100 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and it has become one of the most popular search engines on the internet. Everyone from budding musicians to large international corporations can use the site to promote their product or service, and the introduction of Google ads allows users to monetize their account if they wish to do so. Once you have finished editing your video, the final stage is to upload it to YouTube’s servers, and this can be done using your PC, laptop or any internet-enabled handheld device."

Perhaps something like...

YouTube has become one of the most popular social networks online today. With 100 hours of footage uploaded every minute, everyone from budding musicians to large international corporations now use the site to promote their products and services. Google ads give users the option to monetize their accounts. And it's easy to use. Once you have edited your video, you can upload it to YouTube’s servers using any PC, laptop or internet-enabled handheld device.

[cathleengarvey]

Thanks so much for the feedback you guys, I guess I will have to abandon my beloved long sentences once and for all. To me an article with short sentences reads like a telegram for some reason.

Anyway, Happy New Year to all!!!