OnlineBookClub.org

Hi everyone,
I hope that the subject line makes some sense. My problem is a review that has been returned multiple times. I am an editor also, so I am well aware of the guidelines. I have had a particular review returned multiple times with a very low score for too many mistakes. The "mistakes" are comma usage. Even though I read through my reviews and run them through two different spelling and grammar checks I keep getting flagged, and told, kindly of course, that I should always use a grammar checker. One editor said several commas were not needed, so I removed them to please the editor (even though it was subjective), after sending the review back I was told these commas were needed (obviously by a different editor), so I added them back in, just to be told they were not needed! This is very frustrating!
I was also told I did not follow the guidelines because I did not mention specifically that I would not change anything in the book. The guidelines state that if we would not change anything to find a way to say that "in [our] own words". I repeatedly praised the book saying how wonderful it was and how great the illustrations were. I said how much I loved the book. Is this not saying I would not change anything "in [my] own words"? It seems that many editors are misreading this guideline as the reviewer should say verbatim "I would not change anything about the book", which is NOT what the guidelines say.

I haven't even gotten a response yet to any of my reviews. As a top 1% graduate, summa cum laude 4.0 NHS college grad, best at English, and unpublished writer in the past, well, this sounds like the review mods are not up to snuff around here possibly? At which point, maybe take that up with Scott?

Another thing you might try, cite the source of the editor output, WITH its reasons why from its mouth so to speak and provide that in the quote of the notes.

I use languagetool.org, which is partially built by linguistics professionals, and cite that in my notes.

I'm an editor too and I've tried telling other editors that some comma usage is subjective; meaning you can use it or not use it and either way is not considered an error. Often times it will come back that they disagree. Most of them being Oxford commas that we are specifically told not to mark wrong. I even had one be rude to me and tell me that as an editor I knew that they were errors and that commas were always required, that they were never subjective. They instructed me to check with a grammar checker next time.

I would get a reputable source with a link and a name to it and go ahead and link them to it.

Or bring it up with Scott maybe?

The thing is, I don't think that the people who are doing these checks are vetted at all for qualifications.

I do know that Scott wrote a post somewhere about escalating things to him.

Worst comes to worst find a source from Standford, Yale, Harvard, etc something reputable to go ahead and come back to them with lol, that should settle them down. If they disagree with Standford while sitting around on here for $10 a pop, well, Stanford is above their pay grade.