Within pieces of writing varying interpretations of errors depends on who is the reader. An
error considered by one reader may be a cause for concern, while that same error may be
meaningless to another reader. Larry Beason discusses these different views on errors
within his work, “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors,” and I have
learned that it depends on the way the reader interprets the writing and the scenario of the
error.
Growing up my understanding about writing was like the idea from Beason that “if there is
substantial agreement among professionals’ interpretations, we might know which errors to
focus on and why these should be avoided. If interpretations vary widely, there might be
little we can do to prepare student-except tell them that each reader has his or her own pet
peeves.”. I have struggled in writing because the grade has been determined by my
teacher’s interpretation and the purpose of the assignment. Changing my writing to how I
previously learned did not always work and actually hurt my grade in some cases. For
instance, the other week when learning about resumes’, I learned two different formatting
rules from two different professors within the same week (Exemplum). One professor
interpreted the “Objective” section of my resume as being correct and of no error, but the
other had seen this is a mistake, not following directions, or an error in formatting
(Pleonasm). Each teacher had the same intention to teach the format of a resume, but it
came down to interpretation by each to show the different views on error.
