2. "The Phemenology of error"

Joseph Williams' article addresses the notion of error in writing and furthermore criticizes the trend of educational systems to focus on error avoidance rather than on the communication of ideas.  Williams notes that when someone reads something with an eye for so called error, they tend to miss the actual content of the literature.  He goes on to claim that this is what most writing teachers seem to do and this results in students receiving less feedback about their accomplishments relative to the feedback they receive about their mistakes.  Because of this, the modern educated public reacts to unimportant mistakes with great disdain.  Having to endure this disdainful criticism of inevitable err both from reflection and exterior review often serves as a roadblock for inspiration.

He goes on to stress the relative nature of language with regards to what types of errors are worth complaint.  Some people find certain errors to be greatly crippling to a given slice of prose, while other people might see the same errors as not being errors at all.  He also stresses the point that everyone errs due to the fallibility of human nature.  He cites numerous examples of errors which had gone unnoticed in the very texts which denote what qualifies as a written error.  The point he is trying to make here is that errors are simply not that important of a concern when the text they appear in effectively conveys it's message.  To really illustrate this, Williams points out that he had intentionally inserted over 100 errors in this very article.  Most readers don't think to look for these just because the text is published and presumably carefully edited and as it were, these errors didn't get in the way of Williams' ability to convey his message.