Hello, everybody,
Hope you all are having a lot of fun doing whatever you are doing and
wherever you are!!! Anyways, I have almost all of my textbooks from
Bookshare!! And it's soo awesome!!! Anyways, there is this
workbook/textbook called:
Vocabulary Workshop Level E New Edition
Published by Sadlier-Oxford (think I spelled right, but you will see
it in Bookshare search one of the first few results)
So, as you people imagined, it is like a workbook kind. This book
contains 15 units with 20 words followed by the exercises such as
completing sentence, synonyms/Antonyms, choosing the right word, and
so on... Now, my quesstion is that I am having a hard time figuring
out where the blank is. I know you may say, well, it makes total
sense hearing the sentence such as, "Bookshare is awesome and has many
--- (dash dash dash) volunteers. In this particular sentence made by
me, you know where the blank is and I inserted dashes and wrote the
word dashes for the Jaws users who have punctuation set to none or
some can figure out. In this example, the answer is, "Bookshare is
awesome and has many generous volunteers." But, in some sentences,
you can't tell where the blank is in the sentence or what not by just
hearing. For example, "You are a --- (dash dash dash) person. If I
didn't insert dashes and didn't write dashes in parenthesis for jaws
users like me, you would probably think it is a complete sentence. In
this example, it is, "You are a nice person". You know what I mean?
Now, the person/people who worked on this book put underscore on the
blank spaces and in the print book, students see space for them and
they fill in right the book and obviously you braille users people
know I can't do that regardless of what format book I have. Well, I
have my punctuation set to some, and Jaws doesn't announce the
underscore. I found that out today as I connected my braille display.
I don't really know how bookshare can improve it. I mean, in a word,
I just randomly wrote a sentence, and put dashes (no, not like I did
in this email in parenthesis for the convenience of the Jaws users),
and dash wasn't announced either. I know, you guys are probably
saying, well, then turn on punctuation but then I don't like to hear
the period and comma and such. Does anybody have any suggestions? I
wasn't sure what I would ask if I submited a book quality report. Can
anybody advise? Should I submit a book quality report? If so, what
can they do? I mean, if anybody suggests me how they work on it if
they are experienced with working textbooks and I would be willing to
proofread it myself as this would be the only one to maybe tweak. I
wasn't sure how bookshare volunteers that are trained to work with
textbooks and such format it. Any of your comments/suggestions is
really appreciated. I mean, if somebody sheds some light, and if that
can be improve for future students that may need this book who don't
have a braille display to rely on, I would be more than willing to
proofread it myself. Just say something, please... Just throw a
comment/suggestion out here. Thanks so much! Sorry for long email!
I just couldn't explain it any shorter.
