Friday, April 16, 2010

Hating the Past: Writing Style

Remember when your English teacher said you need more descriptive in your writing. Your paper is not long enough so please extend it by painting a picture for the reader. Your job in these classes seems to be to say as little as possible in each sentence. The teacher wants 4-5 pages and your fresh out of ideas so you spice each sentence to fill pages. Mess with the margins, play with the font. You know all the tricks that got you this far. "That's what 90% of people learn from English classes: how to turn a perfectly respectable sentence into something incomprehensible, cliché-ridden, and three times as long."(Mgoblog)

In the real world, you unlearn the nonsense that was past down to you throughout Middle school, high school, and college. Its bullshit and it’s for those who wish to write novels and travesty articles in what some people call journalism. The majority of students should be learning how to write properly and with a concise purpose.(See the word "concise" is uneccesary there) Rather the goal seems to be to stuff as many adjectives and adverbs in a sentence. You wonder why people use “like” so many times to describe something, or “basically”, or finally.” Curriculum Fail. Idea Fail. The school system has failed you because the english teachers can't do much other than teach or write with their degrees. They will torment you because they had to learn it.

My experience’s in business so far has me unlearn everything I picked up in school. Keep it simple stupid. Just like the way I began to write. Short sentences, saying only what you need to say. Because someone has to read that and in our professions we hate to waste time. In writing our reports the rule is no adjectives and I find myself breaking this rule unknowingly. It's burned into my brain. Hopefully some educators will have a clue and stop this vicious pattern.

2 comments:

  1. does anyone else find the grammar in this article to be somewhat ironic?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, that is part of the point. I wrote the article normally to show the teaching influence.

    ReplyDelete