Do you belive speeling determains quality?

Terry, that's basically what I was saying. The poor spelling serves as a necessary part of the story in the beginning of Flowers for Algernon. I'm not trying to advocate poor grammar and spelling in writing, I'm saying that it's not a bad thing one hundred percent of the time. McCarthy frequently writes with incomplete sentences, and lack of commas, but his writing flows flawlessly.

Cogito, I agree with what you are saying as well. If you want to try and challenge conventional style, you should at least understand what it is that you are trying to fight.

 

I usually skip over work posted here when it looks like the author really doesn't care how his or her piece looks. I might be missing out on a true masterpiece whose author just happens to suck at spelling and grammar, but probably not. Odds are that on the 1,000,000:1 chance they're actually the next James Joyce and not just a lazy writer trying to waste my time, I'll be able to pick up on that.

 

Spelling does not dermine quality. However, it definitely doesn't hurt. I have read plenty of short stories, ametuer articles and other various ramblings, and what is most important to me is the idea. Some of the stuff might be rife with grammar mistakes, missed capitalisation, ect, but it doesn't detract from the idea. It can be distracting though.

For the record, I always try to get perfect spelling and all that on everything, even when I'm just chatting on msn or posting in a forum. It helps me practice for writing stories so when I read them back I'm not distracted by spealing erars...

As for your story milove, I'm guessing part of your grade was based solely on spelling, which is why you didn't get better marks.