When I read this assignment, most of it made sense. For example, coommon words for the ed contraction (groupsign) for words like Edith, need, and Ed. This was all taught when we learned braille if you learned when I did. Here is where I have a problem. You want us to use reduce spelled out with the ed contraction? In EBAE, words like reduce had that compound element where by any re word did not have contractions or groupsigns because of the way it was pronounced. There are still some words that may follow this word, but not most. Reduce is one such word. In the er section of words, erase falls in to the same category as reduce. e-rase not erase. Really? How about the vocal sound er written with the er contraction? How about ow (ouch) in the ow section? In the ing section, ginger? The rest of the words in all sections were common. I'm only questioning those words that don't make sense, and there are plenty through this course that have changed and I'll highlight more later if I remember to do so.
In section 6.1a, it talks about solid compound words such as stateroom which does not use the er contraction and words like erase, ginger, and others do. They should've left the solid compound word rule alone and all words like the ones above which I question would still not use their contractions in full. There are other words mentioned in this section which I'm not touching here, but this can really mess a fully taught braille reader up! I know, I don't like some of the ways common words are written in UEB.
The assignment contains 36 different sentences and I had some problems with it. While I passed the first time, and I was told there was a misspelling, I was also told there was a malformed line where too much text was placed on the line.
The sentence in question was:
Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST is the third book of the trilogy.Thank you for giving my capitals passage in braille, and I did misspell Larsson's in that sentence. The number isn't given as I'll be giving away the answer, so you'll have to find which number this sentence is. If that was the only error, thanks! I must have learned a lot between EBAE and UEB, right?
I decided to get this assignment corrected, send it in, and really get down to the malformed lined business. I sent it, saying that I don't see what the problem was, except for the misspelling. I finally got the answer being that since there is a misspelling, it moved everything up, and I even compared two copies of braille trying to determine where any malformation may have occurred. I did see the misspelling, but besides that, everything looked normal. I don't remember if this was the last time I saw malformation in this course, but I know by 13, it is gone. Thats because I did 13 onwards a bit differently, and it'll be discussed later.
Please get rid of malformed line, braille is not malformed. There may be misspellings, missing punctuation, and other things, but that does not make it malformed. This isn't programming, HTML, CSS, PHP, and other ttypes of work that does have malformations because of not closing code, missing symbols within syntax, and the like.
As I've indicated, starting with 4, I started getting braille copies which helped drastically with the amount of errors. I still recommend the talking edition for review, because it'll ensure over time that you have everything correct and you use that, the braille copy, and the simulated print (uncontracted braille) to check the work. When I did this lesson and beyond, the talking edition was not thought of yet. That didn't come till about 13 or so.
If you've not studied the document I put in assignment 4, maybe now its time to bring it back again for you to get if you didn't get it already. The document, mainly for the sighted, is a representation of what the ascii characters are in the braille alphabet and contracted world. Blind people can study it to learn the various symbols that make up the alphabet and contractions we know. Blind people, it may be a good idea to have punctuation turned on, or listen to any later demos in the lesson set where I'll take you through reading with Jaws and the assigned assignment and how it read it while proofing it in combination with the printed uncontracted braille. Demos will be more consistent starting with assignment 7 as it introduces shortform words (most of which are consistent) however, there may be changes you'll learn about while going through the course. Fun times!
If you have the talking edition, congradulations! This will allow you to use it to check contractions to make sure that they're correct. While the braille is good, you may find confirming what you're reading in braille is what is exactly there in the file. I've ran in to documents where proofing for some people, the embosser has trouble with some dots, and if you're by yourself, there's nobody to turn to, so use that to your advantage. The agency knows about the embosser issue, right now, there is nothing we can do.
There will be no audio for this assignment. Starting with assignment 7, we will do audio as shortform words and other aspects are discussed, and I feel that this will help you decide what program you use long term. My goal isn't to sell you, but since I chose this program, I feel that showing you the work I've done in assignments and the struggles of fixing and proofing it before, and what it is now, will help you decide what you want to use.
This completes the write up for assignment 6.