Investor’s Business Daily Article

Investor’s Business Daily, March 15, 1999 (introductory text omitted)

COMPUTERS MADE PLAIN

Put Your Coarse Copy Through Web Wringer

By Sheila Riley

Investor’s Business Daily

Barbara Boyea, an Arlington, Texas, resident, is taking a proofreading course online in order to benefit her own proofreading business.

Boyea postponed her studies in English and business at the University of Texas at Arlington for a semester while she gets her own business, Miss Peller’s (as in misspeller) Proofreading Service, off the ground.

She had wanted to take a proofreading course at the university. But when she didn’t see one in the course catalog, she went Web surfing.

She struck pay dirt at the Business Writing Center. The Web site is run by Craig Hogan, a business-writing professor at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill. Hogan opened the site in December. The site works for Boyea. She’s taking Hogan’s most popular course, Proofreading skills. He offers nearly 20 subjects in all.

“I like the online course because you can do it at your own pace,” said Boyea.

Boyea does self-paced projects in proofreading. She e-mails Hogan to request tests when she feels she’s ready. Tests are returned via e-mail within a couple of days, with all corrections explained, she says.

Taking classes at your own pace online requires much self-motivation. Boyea says it might have been intimidating if she hadn’t already had college experience. As it was, she felt confident that she had the discipline to work on her own.

Hogan’s more than 250 students include attorneys, business managers, and employees of a bar association. The 13-lesson courses cost $295. Each lesson takes two to five hours. Hogan works individually with each student.

The Web is the ideal way to teach writing and editing skills, Hogan says.

“There is nothing about writing that people can learn in a classroom that they can’t get online. For writing, it’s an ideal medium,” he said.