To: Andre Williams From: Samuel Weber S. W.

Subject: Unreliability of Microsoft Word Editing Tools Date: 29 May 2013 Simply relying on the editing tools built into Word is not a safe method to ensure a passage is formatted correctly, has proper sentence structure, or has a flow that will help a reader grasp the intended purpose of the passage. It would beneficial for you to do the more of the proofreading and subsequent editing personally because you have insight on the work that editing tools are unable to recognize. Examples from the passage: Formatting The first line in the passage is not indented and because this is not technically incorrect the grammar-checker did not flag this error. Additionally, your passage could be broken up into separate paragraphs the help organize the ideas better. For example, the sentence you start with The scientists sampling on most of the streams... would be a good place to start a new paragraph because that is a point in your passage where you start a more in-depth explanation of the scientists processes. By making separate paragraphs when there is a subject change you help the reader differentiate separate points within your passage. Sentence structure The first sentence starts with a fragment which, when read as-is, makes the sentence feel disjointed. Consequently, the reader has to struggle to find the intended purpose of the sentence. Some times breaking a long sentence into multiple smaller sentences helps reads follow all the points you want to covey. In your sentence A scientist collected samples bi-weekly from April through September, then once a month from October through March, then back to bi-weekly for the remainder of the sampling period.. could be broken into two, or even three, sentence to help the reader follow the sequence of events. Readability The second to last sentence starts off by talking about what scientists need to do but ends with what the reader could do. This switch in subject without the proper transition makes the sentence very confusing. Both in-text examples used above, if corrected, would help with readability. Additionally, grammar and spelling play large rolls in readability. For example, in the sentence you talk about accessibility of the rivers banks you say the waterway was not too high to safely access for very months in the studies times.., while it seems that you meant to say for

(various) months. Advice All of these errors are all perceivable to a reader but not to the Word editing tools. Underneath I will revise the passage to highlight where proofreading can benefit opposed to relying on editing tools. I will note the changes by numbering each sentence and making the suggested changes within the passage. Corrections: 1. I fixed the fragment and shortened the sentence to improve readability. 2. I corrected years to years to show position of the deadline to the year. 3. I changed the second and to who in an attempt to make the sentence not be a run on sentence. 5. I changed no samples to any samples to improve readability. 6. I deleted not because the previous phrasing ended up saying the banks were actually safe. 7. I added the proposition in and through to improve sentence readability. 8. I Changed it to them because there are multiple streams. 10. I ended the sentence after E. Coli because the rest of the sentence did not make sense when you started off by referencing the scientists. 11. I changed measured to should measure because using the past tense initially did not go with the tenses used through the rest of the sentence. (1) While yearly water quality testing is increasingly popular, less DEQ staff is currently qualified to conduct water quality sampling. (2) The result is an unintended crunch at the years dead line. (3) In this study, Jim Williams, the principle investigator, accumulated and accounted the data to Walt Shapiro, who analyzed the data. The water qualitysampling schedule took place for a full year to encompass the high flow and base flow for each stream. (5) A scientist commonly assumes that during a streams high flow its banks are inaccessible due to safety concerns thus he does not collects any samples. (6) In one case, the waterway was too high to safely access for many months during the study. (7) The scientists sampling on most of the streams began in early May 2004 and continued through late April 2005. (8) Some of the streams that are impacted and will have state and federal cost share programs on them will have monitoring continued through an additional year. A scientist collected samples bi-weekly from April through September, then once a month from October through March, then back to bi-weekly for the

remainder of the sampling period. (10) Scientists should analyze samples for total suspended solids, total volatile solids, nitrate + nitrite, ammonia, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, fecal coli form and E. coli.. (11) In addition to these analytical tests, a scientist should measure on-site field parameters for dissolved oxygen, temperature, conductivity total dissolved solids, PH, and discharge, when possible, during each sampling incident.