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grammar and spelling. No one wants to read a block of 400 or more words that has no paragraphing or punctuation. In fact, that's why Helium, as compared to print magazines, emphasizes the use of white space and shorter-than-usual paragraphing, with only 3 or 4 sentences each. Web readers want to be able to quickly skim material and learn the basics of what they come for.

Lack of proper punctuation makes it harder to understand material, or even reads as misinformation. For those who think punctuation is trivial, look at this example: "Let's eat, Mom!" has a very different meaning than "Let's eat Mom!"

Beyond the necessary commas, periods, and capitalizations, an experienced writer can do wonders with semicolons, colons, dashes, ellipses, exclamation points and parentheses.

Punctuation is the equivalent of road signs in writing; they warn when to pause, when to change course, and when to stop. Good writers have extensive vocabularies; they can choose a good turn of phrase; and they can create a reading pace with punctuation marks. A reader can often guess who a writer is by the idiosyncrasies in his writing.

Raters are asked to flag material with major faults: suspected plagiarism, self-promotion, adult or profane material, off-topic, illegal, incorrect information, or "other."

Part of the "Other" includes the misuse of capitals. Helium has determined that capitalizing a group of words, including subtitles, looks quite amateurish and violates the User Agreement.

Including incorrect information is a fatal flaw to an article. Flag it, and Helium will remove it until the writer corrects it.

For the lesser faults of limited topics, spelling, grammar, and formatting, raters are asked to contact the writer directly with courteous suggestions for improving the article for everyone's benefit.

This brings up proof reading, self-editing, and using Spell Check (and grammar check, if you have it). The use of these writing tools is the writer's responsibility. Anything less disrespects the raters' and readers' time, and errors deserve to be rated down as faulty craftsmanship.

Raters are asked to judge articles based on "quality" and how informative it is. I prefer substance over form, but a good writer should be able to incorporate both and earn the overall highest rank in a title.

Keeping all of these guidelines in mind, most of the time a rater should be able to choose which article offers the more valuable information (content) in a well-written piece using the proper tone. But, if you really feel stuck, rather than be unfair, choose "skip" and move on.

Rating must be taken seriously, but we are, primarily, writers. If you find yourself spending more time rating than writing, your priorities are skewed-unless you've hit writer's block and simply love to rate!

As Helium's reputation for integrity and quality grows, so do ours. If Helium's staffers are its heart, we, the writers/raters/critics, are its soul. As we create a quality writing platform together, Helium's balloon can only rise higher.

Learn more about this author, Karon Brandt.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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