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allpurposewriter
Community Member

Make sure error free

Upwork kindly gives us a little advice on writing blurbs for our profiles. The advice is this:

 

Use this space to show clients you have the skills and experience they're looking for.

  • Describe your strengths and skills
  • Highlight projects, accomplishments and education
  • Keep it short and make sure error-free

 

Make sure error-free? As in: Don't ever the pronoun and verb out?

18 REPLIES 18
versailles
Community Member

Upwork content may be error-fried at times.

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
renata101
Community Member

Not to mention that misplaced hyphen! How could they! There's rules for that! CMOS managed to generate at least ten pages of advice on that type of thing (See the note on "non-beer-drinking." Or maybe they just meant you should consider this while you're hyphenating?). 

 

However, I think the better advice would be to make sure it's original and has some connection (however tenuous) to real events. I think the line between creative nonfiction and actual fiction gets a real workout on this site. 

 



kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Anthony,

 

Thanks for pointing this mistake out. We'll have it corrected as soon as possible.

~ Valeria
Upwork
yitwail
Community Member


@Anthony H wrote:

Upwork kindly gives us a little advice on writing blurbs for our profiles. The advice is this:

 

Use this space to show clients you have the skills and experience they're looking for.

  • Describe your strengths and skills
  • Highlight projects, accomplishments and education
  • Keep it short and make sure error-free

 

Make sure error-free? As in: Don't ever the pronoun and verb out?


 That's one way, but I would shorten it further to

  • Keep it short and error free

Cat Wink

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce
voronoi
Community Member

Just came here to post a screenshot of this 🙂

"It's never crowded along the extra mile."
iaabraham
Community Member

Guys, "error-free" is hyphenated ... unless I've been messing it up this whole time Smiley Surprised

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/error-free

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free (n.4)


@Isabelle Anne A wrote:

Guys, "error-free" is hyphenated ... unless I've been messing it up this whole time Smiley Surprised

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/error-free

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free (n.4)


You're right.

"Compounds formed with free as second element are hyphenated both before and after a noun."

 
It might have been the beer.  In this case, it's like "half-asleep."  ....or maybe not? 

I think this likely to drive me to discontine non-beer-drinking....

 

 


@Renata S wrote:

In this case, it's like "half-asleep."  ....or maybe not? 
 

Interesting ... I always make it 2 words but CMoS does hyphenate it Smiley Indifferent confusing. MW doesn't hyphenate either: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/half%20asleep


@Nichola L wrote:

Old, but funny.

 

https://www.theonion.com/4-copy-editors-killed-in-ongoing-ap-style-chicago-manu-1819574341


LOL. Thanks Nichola. That's why I like handling papers for mathematicians. They're all focused on the equations. I can't get into too much trouble.  

Nichola, I hereby award you the Megalol Of The Month prize.

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
jackjillian
Community Member

It seems the Upwork website could use a careful review and repair of its word usage, data point descriptions, and even the statistics themselves.

 

Many clients and freelancers will note the errors, just as I have, affecting impressions of the site's standards and the capabilities of its team members.  Beyond that, errors that are NOT quickly noted can lead to confusion, misrepresentations, and much time lost to all site participants.

 

Here are a few noted errors:

 

Some of the information on the "What are My Stats?" explanation page doesn't seem to relate to the data categories provided on the current "My Stats" page.  For example, there doesn't seem to be information provided on the "fit" of a freelancer's proposals. I believe there have been other "My Stats" revisions that aren't accurately reflected on the explanation page.

 

 

I've seen that the "clients recommend" data point is not accurately represented on the "My Stats" page.  (The score describes the percentage of clients who would recommend the freelancer--as in the percentage of clients who have offered a firm YES--when the score is based on a SCALED rating, or "degree of likelihood" of recommending the freelancer.)

 

The word usage error of "clients 'that'" frequently appears. The accurate wording would be "clients 'who.'"

 

On job postings' proposal counts, the the lowest tier should be written as "'fewer' than 'x'"--not "'less' than 'x.'" ("'Less' than" would be used with what cannot be individually counted, as in water, hope, laundry... Proposals can be individually counted; as such, "'fewer' than" is the right description in this context.)

 

I'd like to see Upwork's language/data descriptions/statistics represent the excellence freelancers seek to provide the site's clients.

 

Maybe you should hire one of us.


@Jill J wrote:

It seems the Upwork website could use a careful review and repair of its word usage, data point descriptions, and even the statistics themselves.

 

Many clients and freelancers will note the errors, just as I have, affecting impressions of the site's standards and the capabilities of its team members.  Beyond that, errors that are NOT quickly noted can lead to confusion, misrepresentations, and much time lost to all site participants.

 

Here are a few noted errors:

 

Some of the information on the "What are My Stats?" explanation page doesn't seem to relate to the data categories provided on the current "My Stats" page.  For example, there doesn't seem to be information provided on the "fit" of a freelancer's proposals. I believe there have been other "My Stats" revisions that aren't accurately reflected on the explanation page.

 

 

I've seen that the "clients recommend" data point is not accurately represented on the "My Stats" page.  (The score describes the percentage of clients who would recommend the freelancer--as in the percentage of clients who have offered a firm YES--when the score is based on a SCALED rating, or "degree of likelihood" of recommending the freelancer.)

 

The word usage error of "clients 'that'" frequently appears. The accurate wording would be "clients 'who.'"

 

On job postings' proposal counts, the the lowest tier should be written as "'fewer' than 'x'"--not "'less' than 'x.'" ("'Less' than" would be used with what cannot be individually counted, as in water, hope, laundry... Proposals can be individually counted; as such, "'fewer' than" is the right description in this context.)

 

I'd like to see Upwork's language/data descriptions/statistics represent the excellence freelancers seek to provide the site's clients.

 

Maybe you should hire one of us.


 This has been suggested many times, but as with so many other excellent suggestions, this one seems to have been largely ignored by Upwork. 

Thank you, Reinier!  One of my hopes would be that the site's information would be definitive, well-understood by both clients and freelancers.  Clear descriptions of data points, data update timing, and other key elements would help the site work more fluidly and cost-effectively for all (even aside from language usage differences).  I have noticed several opportunities for improvement, even if my highlights are few and perhaps not representative.  But then, this isn't my assignment.  Will try to stop chomping at the bit. JJ


@Jill J wrote:

 

The word usage error of "clients 'that'" frequently appears. The accurate wording would be "clients 'who.'"

 

On job postings' proposal counts, the the lowest tier should be written as "'fewer' than 'x'"--not "'less' than 'x.'" ("'Less' than" would be used with what cannot be individually counted, as in water, hope, laundry... Proposals can be individually counted; as such, "'fewer' than" is the right description in this context.)

 

Hi Jill. I'm going to be provocative and disagree with you that these are errors. In my view, the rules you're referring to are artificial, invented ones which (!) are not well-founded in the usage of good speakers/writers. Many linguists regard them as cases of "naive prescriptivism", also sometimes known as "zombie rules".

 

I should probably add that I'm a British English speaker, and our typical usage differs somewhat from that of US speakers (for example with regard to the use of "which" and "that" in restrictive/non-restrictive relative clauses). But, to the best of my knowledge, the two cases you raise are much the same on both sides of the Atlantic. There are plenty of people in the UK who insist on "fewer than", to the extent that they managed to get supermarkets to relabel checkouts which were marked as "less than 10 items". I tend to use both "less" and "fewer" myself. I try not to worry which I use, but unfortunately the prescriptionists have made me a bit self-conscious about it. Smiley Wink

Hello Richard--

I'm so grateful for your input. 

 

On Upwork, it's important to keep things global.  I see your points.  I'll keep them in mind when I see what appear to be "errors."

 

Of course, spending so time here is bound to make me want to EDIT and IMPROVE it!  (That's just what I do.)

 

Thank you for your positive provocation.

JJ

*so much time...

 

And thank you for the checkout lane example.  At least there are express lanes!  (And that's another whole area of tracking for accuracy...) jj

Richard ... I'm going to refer to you as "that" from now on. 

I'll do that and you can refer to your toaster as the appliance who turns your bread brown.

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