I've Looked at both the Grammatika.com and Grammarama.com tests
Victoria Strauss wrote:
'I poked around the Grammarama site, and got access to its editing tests, which are pretty unchallenging. If Grammatika's tests are similar, you wouldn't need a whole lot more than basic English skills and an ability to use the "track changes" feature in MS Word to pass--not really a strong endorsement of someone's editing ability, despite the big ballyhoo on the website about "Grammatika certified editors."'
I just found this forum as a result of doing a Google search on
critique grammatika, so I'm replying somewhat belatedly to the latest posting.
I did the same kind of rummaging, about a month ago, on the
grammatika.com site, found their tests and downloaded them. After reading your post, I did the same with
grammarama.com (easy, really, as it was just a matter of substituting
test.html for the page name that was currently in the browser address field).
Having now completed (subject to a final run-through) the Grammatika tests, I can say that there's an order of magnitude difference between the two. The Grammarama test appears to be a pushover for Part I and, for Part II, there would appear to be no objective standard for judging the submission, given that they're asking for a 500-word narrative.
Mere basic English skills would absolutely not suffice to complete the Grammatika tests, which consist of a separate Part I for copy editors and proofreaders, plus a common Part II (25 questions, multiple choice, with the possibility, in some cases, of multiple correct answers) for those wanting to be listed as "experts" (which is dependent, too, on their score in the Part I tests).
The Part I tests require conformance to the
Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, including strict use of the editing symbols.
The copy editing test is in Word format and must be completed using Word's mark-up capabilities. The number of planted errors vastly exceeds what one would encounter in a real-life project, making it a challenge to ensure that one has found them all. They require that comments (including questions of the author) be made (as in real life), where appropriate, and that a copy editor's style sheet be submitted. The subject matter is
Ultimate vs. Momentary Liberation: The Ideal Poets of Emerson and Poe. The first required change is obvious, right there—spelling out "vs." as "versus." To complete the test properly, one needs to refer to the works of both poets. Fortunately, as their copyright has long since expired, they're easy to find on the web.
The proofreading test must be done by physically marking the printer's proof (not required in real life for documents produced by publishing software, but representing a true test of the candidate's knowledge and skills).
Forwarding Christianity: The Beowulf Poet's Critical Contrast is provided, as PDF files, in manuscript form and typeset form. I have to believe that a novice would be quite nervous when taking the test. My reason for saying that is that the manuscript exhibits very sloppy copy editing (deliberately, of course) and it takes a certain degree of confidence to say, "Yes, I really
am supposed to flag every one of them." (That assumes that the novice will catch every one of them.) Every correction on the printer's version is to be identified as EA or PE (Editor's Alteration or Printer's Error). The former is, of course, an obtuse way of saying the copy editor screwed up, as he/she should have caught all errors. They ask for comments, questions and explanations, in addition to the actual corrections. Another challenge for the novice is the distinction between references to Beowulf as a character and to
Beowulf as the name of the work. The test throws a couple of curves in that area (at least as perceived by my imaginary novice).
For each test, a perfect score is 10.0, with 8.0 or better required to pass. Those scoring 9.5 or higher can be certified as experts, as long as they answer at leat 85% of the Part II questions correctly.
Grammatika also asks for a résumé, although it's not entirely clear if that's mandatory.
The comments in this thread, so far, remind me of the ads that used to say, "If you can draw this, you may have artistic talent." It didn't take too long for investigative journalists to find out, by submitting the worst attempt they could muster, that everyone who mailed in a submission would be told that he/she had obvious talent and great potential and should, therefore, sign up immediately for a correspondence course. Obviously, an investigator could sign up for Grammatika, do a really crappy job on the test, and see if he/she passed.
For those concerned about shelling out the annual fee in advance, they have money back guarantees on two levels. If, within three days of registering and downloading the tests, you don't think it's for you, they'll refund your money. If you pass the tests and, after 90 days, you're not satisfied with the opportunities being presented via email or on the members-only pages, they'll also refund your money.
If you don't trust them to cough up the money when you ask for a refund, I recommend paying by American Express (if you have a card and they accept it—obviously). If someone refuses to credit your account when you ask for a refund, or if they simply ignore you, Amex will handle it for you. Over the years, they have done so for me and I've prevailed every time—in some cases for amounts several times as great as Grammatika's fees. You can do the same with MasterCard and Visa, but doing so is not quite as effortless as with Amex.
Finally, a little investigation reveals that
Copyright Editorial, LLC, the owner of the
grammatika.com and
grammarama.com sites is a sponsor of
SPAN (
Small Publishers Association of North America), as is the printer I used for my book (
Bushopedia). (
Full disclosure: I'm a member of SPAN.) Obviously, one can say that there's a self-serving aspect to being a sponsor of such an organization, but it does put them in reasonably respectable company. I've looked into
Copyright Editorial's only free course (using my wife's name and email address). I found it reasonably impressive. [Added 2007-02-02 13:36 PST: The website with the courses is
editorialcourses.com.]
Given all the above, and as I've been unable to unearth other critiques of
grammatika.com (using other search words), I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
Bill Potts, Roseville, CA
Author,
Bushopedia
Owner, Potts Publishing and WFP Consulting (which includes WFP Writers' Services)
