Writing aid: mediocrity at its best
11 May 2025(2025 May) – I underestimate how long it takes me to write a report. Wanting to be a perfectionist and being thorough makes for a demanding experience. I can ease off perfection, but not at the expense of thoroughness. In the same way, retail is detail, so is rent review. I used to use Grammarly to check for punctuation, typographical mistakes, and the occasional misspelling, but with the so-called AI suggestions, I rarely agreed. The style was far too wishy-washy and subordinate for my liking. When I need to be careful how I phrase something, I choose my words carefully. When I write about a lease, for example, I put the “Lease 12 August 2024”; I don’t want technology to insist upon putting the “Lease dated 12 August 2024”. And I certainly don’t want the ‘then’ deleted after ‘if’. As for its tendency to want to rephrase what it finds in between “…” that would be altering the original, no matter how awful. So, part of the reason a long time to write a report is to check whether the technology has messed with my style and, if so, then undo its suggestions.
I can tell when someone emails me uses G. When I send an attachment, I write “I attach…”. G changes that to “I have attached.” G may be grammatically correct; I don’t know, but even so, I don’t like it. Of course, I don’t have to accept G’s version; I can click dismiss. And, actually, I don’t have to use G at all. I managed perfectly well without a writing aid for years.
Having ditched G, disliking also its politics in my face whenever up and running, I now use LanguageTool. Not as sophisticated, but at least it’s not as annoying. Instead of doing what it tells me as I go, I scan the entire report in one fell swoop.
I told the client I’d get the report to him by the end of May 2024. Months later, it was finished. All 18,800 words and 47 pages, no copy-and-paste. He paid me by return. Had I said it would take months to provide the report, then I might not have gotten the instruction. (Gotten is a fun word.)
Research for a report is time-consuming. For example, according to an online source promoted as the “go-to-choice” for surveyors (and others), the property is not in a flood zone, but as well I checked because it is. It took me about an hour to ascertain the source of the water that floods. (G preferred ‘flooded’). Go-to-choices that misinform are time-wasting.
I daresay other surveyors are quicker, but probably less thorough if my experience of acting as expert witness or advocate is anything to go by. According to a well-known chartered surveyor frequently appointed as a third party, I am known for being thorough. Ultimately, what’s important is to get a pleasing result, and for that, there are some things that can’t be rushed.
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