Summer writing project (Day Forty-Four): The importantce of proofreading!

I just found that 1999 paper that I wrote on doing research on the internet. It was published in a 2000 volume of essays on communication and culture that was edited by the conference organizer. When it was published, I was unhappy with the proofreading because the student worker who did the copy-editing decided (or followed the Word recommendations that decided) that the word "Internet" should have a "The" in front of it every time. So my paper, originally titled "Internet Research in English: Problems and Solutions for EFL Students," became "The Internet Research in English: Problems and Solutions for EFL Students." That's not too bad, but then there were also sentences that ended up looking like this: "What problems might EFL students have regarding research on the English The Internet?" I also had two figures that I wanted to include, but for some reason the same figure was inserted in both places. (By the way, to show you how old this paper is, here's the figure--a screenshot of Infoseek's search results for "computer virus":

Now doesn't that bring back memories? No? Oh well...)

One thing that I can't blame the copy-editor for is this gem of an overlooked placeholder that I left in the final draft, to wit: "'Paper' publishing is a demanding process that involves many people, a good deal of money, and complicated apparatuses of control and stuff." I believe I was referring to print publishing (not sure why I called it "paper publishing"), but I really love the "and stuff." Lucky my language wasn't a bit more colorful...

OK, back to working on my presentation. And a reminder to myself to proofread carefully!