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Seven Sins of Writing

hamilton.edu

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Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#51

Post by paint »

PakG1 wrote: post #46
jrockway wrote: post #42

I like how one of the rules is basically about "its" and "it's". I think English made a big mistake by making this irregular; both forms should have been "it's". I hope it's issues are fixed in English v2. (You just read the first sentence in English v2!)

I presume this is a joke. Languages evolve over time (centuries in the case of English), there are very few examples of designed languages. English is especially complicated because it emerges from a melting pot of germanic, Latin, Greek, French, etc. The form of the word its emerged through a linguistic process that took a long, long time. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/its#

Yes, it was a joke.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#52

Post by icegreentea2 »

PakG1 wrote: post #47
cebert wrote: post #5

I’ve always seen recommendations to avoid passive voice in writing. However, when I encounter passive voice it doesn’t bother me. It also is one of my more frequent writing mistakes. Is this still considered bad practice?

The interesting question is if passive voice is so bad, how did it come about in the English language and why did it survive? That directly contradicts a lot of this advice. Though I try to use primarily active voice because it helps me save on word/page count when I'm trying to submit papers to conferences.

Passive voice in itself is benign. It provides flexibility, and it lets you emphasize the target of an action, or the action itself over the do-er, if that fits your intent.

Advice to avoid passive voice comes from a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most charitable (and I think useful) view would be:

* In technical writing, you might have pick up passive voice because of misguided advice to use avoid "I" and "we". This naturally leads you to using passive voice all over the place. This makes the writing "seem more objective", but is really just the veneer of objectivity. And in some ways is the polar opposite of the advice to always avoid passive voice. English has both voices - use them both. If nothing else (and all other things were equal), active voice tends to be more concise - as you have noted - which is a true benefit for technical writing.

* Passive voice is one of tools employed when weaseling or obfuscating (see the infamous "mistakes were made"). Advice to avoid the passive voice is either nudging you to either... just be more honest (don't weasel!), or to be more clever in your weaseling (because everyone knows the trick...)

* Because use of passive voice in more mundane/banal communication is so common (or seemingly so common), there was a perception that people were just defaulting in the passive because that's what government officials, or companies or whatever talked like. And so the advice was pushback. Reminding you that you don't have to speak or write like a prepared government speech or press release.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#53

Post by theandrewbailey »

jrockway wrote: post #42

I like how one of the rules is basically about "its" and "it's". I think English made a big mistake by making this irregular; both forms should have been "it's". I hope it's issues are fixed in English v2. (You just read the first sentence in English v2!)

English is already on version 3 at least.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#54

Post by readthenotes1 »

martinjacobd wrote: post #41
readthenotes1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wordiness, in the fantasticly useful advice I am quite frequently accustomed to receiving in the rare and unusual (I cannot go so far as to say unique though that is nearly as a tick to a dog true) circumstances that have led me to receiving others thoughts on my quite elegant prose might be characterized as inserting too many brilliantly (to the astute author) descriptive adverbs and adjectives that somehow impede t…

I guess I just don't see sentences like this, even from novice writers.

I don't see sentences like this, even from novices.

For example:)

Btw, Stephen Brust has a series of books whose authorial tone is explicitly wordy, and he makes it work.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#55

Post by dbtc »

martinjacobd wrote: post #6

I wish I understood what "wordiness" means. Perhaps it's restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences. People who harp on this point usually point to the writing of Hemingway and similar writers (Carver comes to mind). All of these men are better writers than I am, but I still prefer to read Nabokov. Could Nabokov have "made his point" in fewer words? Almost certainly, but I wouldn't have en…

Wordiness is inefficiency but some things are better left unoptimized.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#56

Post by personjerry »

dbtc wrote: post #55
martinjacobd wrote: post #6

I wish I understood what "wordiness" means. Perhaps it's restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences. People who harp on this point usually point to the writing of Hemingway and similar writers (Carver comes to mind). All of these men are better writers than I am, but I still prefer to read Nabokov. Could Nabokov have "made his point" in fewer words? Almost certainly, but I wouldn't have en…

Wordiness is inefficiency but some things are better left unoptimized.

When you're a beginner it's important to know the rules. Then as you develop your style you can decide which rules to break.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#57

Post by stewbrew »

kshacker wrote: post #19
martinjacobd wrote: post #6

I wish I understood what "wordiness" means. Perhaps it's restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences. People who harp on this point usually point to the writing of Hemingway and similar writers (Carver comes to mind). All of these men are better writers than I am, but I still prefer to read Nabokov. Could Nabokov have "made his point" in fewer words? Almost certainly, but I wouldn't have en…

Hmmm, let's demonstrate wordiness :) > I wish I understood what "wordiness" means. Perhaps it's restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences. Does wordiness mean restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences? > People who harp on this point usually point to the writing of Hemingway and similar writers (Carver comes to mind). All of these men are better writers than I…

I don't think you got the last sentence right.

I once noticed that people who are used to quickly read tons of texts often don't get the meaning of more winded sentences right. (I assume chatgpt would have the same issue.) But the fault was mine of course, since I did not distinguish between texts written to convey information and "literary" texts written for amusement.

In the age of LLMs it makes you wonder though, if all this writing advice isn't out of date. Concise texts are for AIs, wordy texts are for humans.

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#58

Post by harperlee »

weaksauce wrote: post #37
martinjacobd wrote: post #6

I wish I understood what "wordiness" means. Perhaps it's restating the same simple point three times in as many loose sentences. People who harp on this point usually point to the writing of Hemingway and similar writers (Carver comes to mind). All of these men are better writers than I am, but I still prefer to read Nabokov. Could Nabokov have "made his point" in fewer words? Almost certainly, but I wouldn't have en…

https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/seven-sin... provides a bit more context and example. remove the words that don't add to the meaning of the sentence. that aside, this is in an academic setting and not prose where the rules are not hard and fast.

Several of the changes both in that article (“The reason that General Lee invaded…”) and in other examples from this topic take out relevant information from the reader about emphasis of what’s being said.

Perhaps (theory just concocted!) taking these helpers out puts more effort on the reader, thus putting the text on a higher relationship of authority with the reader, and that makes it seem “stronger” writing!

Re: Seven Sins of Writing

#59

Post by a_bonobo »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #49
mabbo wrote: post #32

> Passive voice produces a sentence in which the subject receives an action. In contrast, active voice produces a sentence in which the subject performs an action. Setting aside whether the passive or active voice is better, I'm delighted by this description of what each is.

I can't grok "receives an action". What does "receives" mean? Looking at the example, I can only see that the active voice variations have: - The action after the subject - The action closer to the subject than the passive voice variation - The subject earlier in the sentence than the passive voice variation Can a sentence specifically be active or passive voice, or are active and passive on opposite ends of a spectr…

>Five people were shot in a police-related incident

is a passive voice. The people receive the action.

>A policeman shot five people today

is active voice. The policeman shoots people.

I use this particular example because it's a prime example of voice for the deflection of responsibility, see https://www.nber.org/papers/w30209

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