The Art of Simple Writing
I love my college students, but it is laborious to read some of their papers – long rambling incomplete sentences (if you can call them sentences), weird paragraphing, non-existent organization of the material into an argument, and multi-syllable words used in ways that only a contortionist could appreciate. The best writing advice I can give to them is that was shared by Mark Twain in a letter to a young friend, “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences. That is the way to write English. It is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it.”
Does that advice seem overly simplistic? Well, consider the following reconstructed adages borrowed from The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right
- Pulchritude possesses profundity of a merely cutaneous nature. (Beauty is only skin deep.)
- It is not efficacious to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. (You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.)
- Visible vapors that issue from carbonaceous materials are a harbinger of imminent conflagration. (Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.)
- A revolving mass of lithic conglomerates does not accumulate a congery of small green bryophitic plants. (A rolling stone gathers no moss.)
I appreciate my students trying to impress me with their vocabulary. And, there is room for more picturesque language in writing. However, simple is usually better.
Trout goes on to offer the following advice,
- Keep sentences short.
- Pick the simple word over the complex word.
- Choose the familiar word.
- Avoid unnecessary words.
- Put action in your verbs.
- Write like you talk.
- Use terms your readers can picture.
- Tie in with your reader’s experience.
- Make full use of variety.
- Write to express, no impress.
What suggestions would you add to his list?
My wife is a professor at a local community college who teaches writing to freshman and sophomore students. Many of the papers she receives are exactly as you describe.
One quite anecdote…
When I was a freshman in my very first semester in college, I signed up for an English composition class. This class was taught by an avowed, man-hating feminist who openly declared the first day that no male student would receive any grade higher than a “C” in her class. It didn’t matter how well the male students wrote, she was’t going to give any male a better grade. I was onl 18 and very naive at the time so I didn’t challenge such a unprofessional and unethical proclamation. Today I would.
During the semester, after receiving several grades of “C” (including one paper that I had someone with a PhD help check for me) she told me face-to-face that my writing wasn’t any good and I wouldn’t ever be a published writer.
Turns out she was just as off-base in her prediction as she was in her ethics. Although I am not eloquent nor overly refined in my writing style, my first published article occurred less than a year later and over these many years I have had multiple articles on various topics published by local and regional publications. Admittedly it’s been very sporadic, but I take satisfaction that my first university-level professor was completely wrong.
Ooops…my typing fingers are faster than they ought…
“quite” should read “quick”
Thank you, from someone who is neither a professional writer nor an English teacher… just a simple blogger. We need all the help we can get too.