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Writing well

julian.com

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Re: Writing well

#71

Post by tartoran »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #38

Too much clarity loses writing voice. Poor writers with substance can create compelling content. Sometimes I want the cliff notes and sometimes I want to be enamored with some lovely prose that leads me somewhere and makes me think.

Absolutely. But there are different writing styles for different purposes. Technical writing should be different than creative writing or you might lose some of the audience. But I read some great creative and technical writing that explains concepts through metaphors are imagery and do enjoy it.

Re: Writing well

#72

Post by FemmeAndroid »

eganist wrote: post #68
nobody9999 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't "correct" anything. Those are all Safire's words and none of mine. Safire was using sarcasm through those examples to get his point across.

The original: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/04/archives/on-language-the-... > • Verbs has to agree with their subjects. But I saw what happened. Googling Safire's rules, the "helpful" top result via Google quoted a source that misquoted Safire, which I'm guessing is how it made it into your comment. So no worries.

Thanks for this. I was stuck trying to figure out that line.

Re: Writing well

#73

Post by nobody9999 »

eganist wrote: post #68
nobody9999 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't "correct" anything. Those are all Safire's words and none of mine. Safire was using sarcasm through those examples to get his point across.

The original: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/04/archives/on-language-the-... > • Verbs has to agree with their subjects. But I saw what happened. Googling Safire's rules, the "helpful" top result via Google quoted a source that misquoted Safire, which I'm guessing is how it made it into your comment. So no worries.

Thank you for the correction and the original link.

It's much appreciated!

Re: Writing well

#74

Post by darkerside »

jgrahamc wrote: post #11

I found this very hard to read. There are so many short sentences and bullet points that it looks like a PowerPoint presentation masquerading as prose. What he seems to have lost with this approach is a rhythm. It's a staccato battering with ideas. I'd much rather be seduced and cradled by writing that made me feel I'm learning by osmosis and not trepanning. EDIT: The author illustrates how his writing goes wrong by…

People aren't machines. We don't take an input and process it completely the first time. Human functions are not idempotent because we are stateful to the extreme, and when we hear the same message, we process it a different way the second time.

Repetition is a tool. Repeating yourself is useful. When I was younger, I thought it was good to be brief, succinct, and concise (and for some purposes, it is). But with most audiences, repeating yourself several times, as I have done here, is your best chance at getting your message to actually hit home. People need to understand and process your idea from different angles and perspectives, and if you aren't able or willing to take efforts to make yourself understood, they will justifiably not make the effort to understand you either.

Or, as I could have said more succinctly, there is value in repeating an important message in different but overlapping ways.

Re: Writing well

#75

Post by Veen »

unculture wrote: post #21
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #6

Am I the only one who thinks that sinlge-sentence paragraphs should be the exception, not the rule?

Tell that to Dave Trott, who is an influential British advertising copywriter. All of his writing comes in the form of one sentence paragraphs. There's whole books of it! https://davetrott.co.uk/

That style is ideal for advertising copy, but for little else. The author of the original article could have avoided a lot of criticism if he’d called it “Writing Marketing Copy Well” instead of “Writing Well”.

Re: Writing well

#76

Post by goto11 »

jgrahamc wrote: post #65
goto11 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with two of Safires points: There is nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive. Shakespeare does it and Star Trek does it. Passive voice is fine. Sure it can be used to make the text impersonal and hide responsibility. But is can also be used to make the text clearer and to emphasize what is important. Use it as appropriate.

You've missed the point entirely. Go back and reread.

I don't think his point is that the you shouldn't follow these rules though. Surely nobody would think you shouldn't proofread? He is just stating the rules ironically with an embedded example. Most of his rules are fine.

Re: Writing well

#77

Post by mybandisbetter »

Veen wrote: post #12
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #6

Am I the only one who thinks that sinlge-sentence paragraphs should be the exception, not the rule?

You are not the only one. It's irritating to read. Complexity and nuance are sacrificed because the writer values concision over truthfulness. You can see the problem in the first two sentences of the article: "To write well is to think clearly. If you can think clearly, you can find something worth saying." These are pleasant aphoristic paragragraphs, but what they say is not actually true. They gesture towards some…

There's another problem with being obsessed with concision: it's more compatible with simple ideas than nuanced ideas. I work at a place where I'm required to explain urban planning issues while using the simplest-possible subjects in all sentences. So, I can write, "Transit improves traffic," but I can't write, "To the extent that transit enables residents to reach destinations more efficiently than driving, a greater number of proportion of people can travel without worsening traffic." This isn't a great example because I'm sure there's a simpler way to write my second sentence. The pattern I've noticed, however, is that I often need to be intellectually dishonest to write simple sentences with simple subjects, because they make the world seem simpler than it is. A complex world — full of gradations and marginal costs — often requires complex sentences.

Re: Writing well

#78

Post by kinghtown »

nobody9999 wrote: post #45
jgrahamc wrote: post #11

I found this very hard to read. There are so many short sentences and bullet points that it looks like a PowerPoint presentation masquerading as prose. What he seems to have lost with this approach is a rhythm. It's a staccato battering with ideas. I'd much rather be seduced and cradled by writing that made me feel I'm learning by osmosis and not trepanning. EDIT: The author illustrates how his writing goes wrong by…

William Safire's Rules for Writers: Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing. ========= The above, plus Strunk & White[0], should be enough fo…

The passive voice has been used well on occasion.

Re: Writing well

#79

Post by paulpauper »

jgrahamc wrote: post #11

I found this very hard to read. There are so many short sentences and bullet points that it looks like a PowerPoint presentation masquerading as prose. What he seems to have lost with this approach is a rhythm. It's a staccato battering with ideas. I'd much rather be seduced and cradled by writing that made me feel I'm learning by osmosis and not trepanning. EDIT: The author illustrates how his writing goes wrong by…

Agree. I found this guide full of fluff and filler.

Re: Writing well

#80

Post by martingoodson »

lqet wrote: post #43

The style of this article reminds me of Wittgenstein: short, clinical, almost mathematical statements, with no poetical ambition whatsover. I understand that there might be situations in which such a style is appropriate, but this article is just very annoying to read. I would not definitely not call it "good writing". The kind of "clarity" presented here as good writing works well if you assume that everything that…

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

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