Unfortunately, the red letters are reserved for moderators and contributors so that we can feel special.
It's not so we can feel special!! Ha ha. Makes me feel like my 4rth grate teacher, Mrs. Hammond... anyway, I think everyone has bold and italics to us, right?
Eric, thanks for making this post. I should have thought of it! Here is the important part of my response:
Please don't paste the whole essay when you make corrections. Or, as you make corrections, please divide it up so that the only sentences showing in your correction post are the sentences you corrected. We don't want to have several appearances of the whole essay in each thread.I put that in bold so people will see it when they visit this post.
That will help us a lot.
As for making good corrections... try to lift spirits, but most importantly use your writing talant to help people see how their writing looks to others.
No, you do not have to say you are not a professional writer.
As for correcting grammar mistakes...sometimes you can tell that it is a person trying to learn English, so make corrections accordingly. Help them conjugate those verbs, etc.
Thanks again, Eric!
Eric and Tyler, all you need to do in order to know know all that a professional writer knows is study 2 little books:
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and Dianna Hacker's most recent book about composition. Other than the rules of style and grammar, what is here to know?