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[RC] Nineteen? (was: Big Ride Training) - k s swigart

Lisa Salas said:


You are critiquing this young person as if she were
a professional rider and writer. How old is she?
Nineteen?? NINETEEN!


So...which of us has more respect for the author of this article.  Me?
Who thinks no matter what her age that the article should be evaluated
on its merits of the information it contains and how it is presented, or
somebody who thinks that it shouldn't be held to any standards because,
after all, the author is too young and inexperienced to know any better?

_I_ am unwilling to dismiss the less that perfect language in her
writing as irrelevant because I am willing to treat her as an adult, and
I think to do otherwise is condescending.

And, FWIW...when _I_ was nineteen, my first summer job in college was as
a professional technical writer.  And if/when I had written something
that didn't come across successfully for my intended audience, then my
boss (my editor) would have/did help me fix it so it did....and I am a
better writer for it.  I wouldn't be if he hadn't bothered but instead
just patted me on the head and said "jolly good effort for a teen-ager."
He had more respect for me than that.

Of course, since he was the editor, it was his job to do more than just
pat me on the head...

I don't know how many of you read books or the "acknowledgements"
section in them, but almost invariably authors give praise and cudos to
their great editors, "without whom it could never have been done."

Publishing without an editor (which is what the Internet is) or
publishing without a competent editor (which is what Lisa is suggesting
with this statement: "This was an article for EN, (which is a great
magazine but it isn't TIME magazine ...)") is fraught with danger
because you are, in essence, asking your audience to be your editor.

However, imagine this, you are another junior rider who would is keen to
get your horse ready for Tevis or some other big ride, and you read an
article in the Endurance News under "junior news" that says you must
ride your horse every other day, you have to get in 90 miles in the week
exactly 8 weeks before the ride, that you have to do a 50 miler exactly
6 weeks before the ride...and your response is...

"My god, I could never do that.  I will never be able to do Tevis or any
other big ride."

And you are discouraged to the extent that you give up your hopes
entirely.

Or...you are the inexperienced parent of said junior rider, and YOU read
in the Endurance News that this is what your kid is going to have to do
in order to ever do a big ride.  You don't know any better and it IS
published in the official publication of the American Endurance Ride
Conference...

SOMEBODY needs to tell all the other juniors and inexperienced riders in
the audience of the Endurance News that this ain't necessarily so.

And personally, I am of the opinion that the author of the article, no
matter what her age is grown up enough to be able to accept that she
might have been able to convey her point more successfully if she hadn't
used language that is so dogmatic.

Pardon me for treating her as an adult.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)






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