Fwd: latest copy !!

[Sankalp]

Hi,
Below is an email I sent to Shantanu a while ago...
We had a near-final copy of ping (march-april 2010), which I received for proof-reading. I then proceeded to do what I do :) -- go through it with a fine toothed comb.
I'm sending this mail to everyone because not all errors that I've pointed out in the mail must've crept in during the typesetting of the articles.

Please go through the mail and refer to the attached PDF to see the errors in their original context. Those who made some of these errors while writing their articles, try not to do so in the future and those who went through the articles and overlooked the errors, please try to be more thorough from now onwards.

I hope you all take this in the positive sense :) As it is most of us 3rd years wont be doing much proof-reading after this. Hoping to see ping get even better in the years to come.

---------
Sankalp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sankalp <sankal...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: latest copy !!
To: Shantanu Shrivastava <shanta...@gmail.com>
Cc: "oui, mon ami.... c'est la vie...." <bhatt...@gmail.com>, Altamish Ahmad <altamis...@gmail.com>

Hi,

Some issues which I wish to point out with the PDF attached. As usual, some might say that some of these errors are small and insignificant, but I'll stick to my view that as a newsletter/magazine we should strive for perfection, at least as far as the language is concerned :

• The "A Day at CVIT" title is not descriptive at all. It might as well be an article on what the typial CVITian does in his/her day. Kindly try to change it to something that gives a hint to the reader that it is an Interview with PJN.
• PJN Interview, Question 2. and Answer : change the IIT's to IITs. We're talking about IIT in plural right?
  
• PJN Interview, Question 2. Answer : "Numbers really do not have that much importance." We're missing that "s".
• PJN Interview, Question 2. Answer : "Also the funding that IIIT gets is on par or even I may say better..." change the "on par" to "at par".
  
• PJN Interview, Question 2. Answer : "The institutes' vision" it should be "institute's".
• PJN Interview, Question 2. Answer : last line... "production of PhDs" again, we're missing that "s".
• PJN Interview, Question 3. Question : change "cite out" to simply "cite".
• PJN Interview, Question 7. Answer : Supreet Acharya is in UG2k7, and is definitely NOT pursuing further studies at CMU. The guy being referred to here is called Supreeth Achar.
• PJN Interview, Question 11. Question : "Why is that the perception" change that to it.
• PJN Interview, Questions 11 and 12. Answer : in the last line "might not complete CSE/ECE program also in 4 years" we're missing that "s"
• PJN Interview, Question 13. Question : "How are you looking research in ..." ?? What is that even supposed to mean... "looking at research" would make some sense. Same line, "the coming years" would be better, i think.
  
• PJN Interview, Section : Your favourite Professor. For chrissake stop misspelling names of Faculty, Students and other people whose names are publicly available on the IIIT Website, Intranet Academic Page and so many other places!!
  It's Kannan not Kanan.
• Dean's List, Paragraph 3. "The ceremony started with a brief introduction of these awards by -------- Dr. Kamal Karlapalem" what is that big string of hyphens doing there :P
• Dean's List, Paragraph 3. "Thereafter, mementos were given to the students by the faculty members . Momentos to UG1 students were given..." notice how memento turns into momento!!
• Dean's List, Paragraph 3. "Kothapally". Now I'm no fan of KiKo, but what I stated earlier w.r.t. spelling the names of people applies to him as well.
• Parliament Article. 1st paragraph on Page 6 of the issue. change Levithian to Leviathan.
• Parilament Article. Page 6 of the issue. "Parliament meetings( another issue discussed)." shift the opening bracket to the spot adjoining "another" :)
• Transparent Grading Policy. "cite out" returns again... could someone please verify if it's correct? I get a feeling it isn't. Bhatt please come to the rescue of us minions!
• Transparent Grading Policy. "We here clear that..." I think that should be clarify.
• Transparent Grading Policy. "... how the other has faired in the course." change it to fared please. The same mistake is there further in the article too.
  
• Transparent Grading Policy. "Criteria's can change..." it should be Criteria since criteria is the plural of criterion.
• Transparent Grading Policy. "... shroud competitive world." I'm sure the author meant shrewd there, and not shroud.
• Placements 2009/2010. I feel that placements are something to be handled as a plural, not as a singular noun. If so, then please change instances like "It began..." to "They began", "is continuing" to "are continuing" etc. throughout the article.
• Placements 2009/2010. "Goldman Sachs, which were impressed..." I suppose that should be was.
• Placements 2009/2010. "M- Tech"... "B-Tech" could be replaced with M.Tech. and B.Tech.
  
• Cultural Updates. 1st sentence. "With the end of this semester, the cultural season With the end of this semester, again comes the cultural season to add to the flavors of fun and rejoice." Two things... One, the first part of the sentence is repeated. Two, we decided to use English (UK) as the accepted standard, so change flavors to flavours.
• Cultural Updates seems to have been written prior to the Cult.Night, and hasn't been updated :-/ . This calls for a rewrite/major edit. (I'm skipping the rest of it now...)
• WBPL. Just a suggestion, but ending the column with an Article title?... If possible, lets move the title to the next column.
• WBPL. "( Some of the new players have now started analysing NBA
  videos on youtube !!)" lets remove the space b/w opening bracket and "S" and change "analysing" to analyzing.
• Pen Stand. A Letter from 2070. "It seldom rains here, hen it happens, its mostly the acid-rain." change hen to when and remove the.
• Alumni Corner. The company's name is Deloitte, not Deloite. Notice the double "t".
• Alumni Corner. "... Service Commission Exams ie Civil Services ..." change it to i.e.
• Alumni Corner. change how's, when's, what's to hows, whens, and whats respectively.
• Alumni Corner. occurences of the word "pre-lims" should be changed to prelims.
• Alumni Corner. "Pre-lims is of qualifying ..." apart from the change mentioned in the previous point, prelims, to me, seems plural... so I suggest making that prelims are of ... (Bhatt, Sood, Altamish please confirm this!!)
• Alumni Corner. "Another possible reasons for ..." remove that s.
• Alumni Corner. "Tarun was comfortable and ... so he opted for that." here this line is (or at least seems to be) part of an answer given by him, so I feel that it should be made "I was comfortable and ... so I opted for that."
• Agony Aunt. Point 3. "Spam filters in the SquirrelMail is very bad." Agreed... but remove the the and change is  to are.
• Ping recommends. "Its animation" I feel it'd be better put as "Its animated".

I think this was my last (gruelling) error-finding quest for ping :)
I only do this so that such mistakes may be avoided in the future, and not to be sarcastic or to dampen the spirits of all those who contribute.

Cheers,

----------
Sankalp

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:42 PM, Shantanu Shrivastava <shanta...@gmail.com> wrote: