When I tried Apple's Pages, I was delighted to find that the program points out clichés and wordy phrases. It also reflects the aesthetic of its developers. When I start a sentence with "but" it tells me that phrasing is informal, and that "it is preferable to avoid beginning a sentence with 'But.'" It says the same thing about "And." If you use words like "conceptualizing," it complains about complexity and suggests using a simpler term like "thinking." I can imagine whole academic papers underlined with little green Mac dots.I can imagine entire journals in that state.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Yes! The Importance Of Teaching Writing
Here's a marvelous paragraph from the April 30, 2012 Chronicle of Higher Education about the importance of clear writing:
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It was hard enough to find teachers who could teach writing 40 years ago. I can only imagine the decline since then.
ReplyDeleteA former student of mine asked me to read a short paper she had written for a college class. The paper contained three logical fallacies in four pages.
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