The language of the Web 207
pagesdirectly,itisperfectlypossibletodownloadadocumenttoour
own computer, change the text, then upload the new document to a
Web site we have created for the purpose. In this way, it is relatively
easy for people to steal the work of others, or to adapt that work in
unsuspected ways. There is a widespread opinion that ‘content is
free’, fuelled by the many Web pages where this is indeed the case.
But freedom needs to be supplemented with responsibility, and this
is often lacking. Examples of forgery abound. Texts are sent to a site
purporting to be by a particular person, when they are not. I know
from personal experience that not all the ‘I am the author’ remarks
in some book sites are actually by the author. And there have been
several reported instances when a literary author’s work has been
interfered with. This does not seem to be stopping the number of
authors ready to put their work directly onto the Web, however.
Most traditional printed texts have a single author – or, if more
than one author is involved, they have been authorized by a sin-
gle person, such as a script editor or a committee secretary. Sev-
eral pairs of eyes may scrutinize a document, before it is released,
to ensure that consistency and quality is maintained. Even indi-
vidually authored material does not escape, as publishers provide
copy-editors and proof-readers to eradicate unintended idiosyn-
crasy and implement house style. It is in fact extremely unusual
to find written language which has not been edited in some way –
which is one reason why chatgroup and virtual worlds material is
so interesting (p. 170). But on the Web, these checks and balances
are often not present.^20 There are multi-authored pages, where the
style shifts unexpectedly from one part of a page to another. The
more interactive a site becomes, the more likely it will contain lan-
guage from different dialect backgrounds and operating at different
stylistic levels – variations in formality are particularly common.
(^20) The lack of editorial quality control in many Web sites appals people brought up in the
rigorous climate of traditional publishing. A licensed edition of the electronic text of the
Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, which I edit, to one Web site was reproduced there
with no in-house editing at all – even to the extent of reproducing on-screen the printer
codes and page cross-references from the printed book, some of which were to sections
in the printed book that the Web site decided not to include. This is one story out of
dozens.