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When Good People
Write Bad Sentences
DO YOU GET A LIFT by dangling a participle? Has your punctuation ever caused
difficulties at home or at work? Do you consider yourself just a
"social misspeller?"
These are just a few of the warning signs that you might have an addiction
to bad writing, also known as malescribism.
What is malescribism?
Malescribism is a set of dysfunctional responses to the demands of communicating
in print. Instead of carefully and thoughtfully conveying a clear, confident
message, malescribes string words together in an intuitive way, disregarding
many of the accepted conventions of grammar, syntax, and style.
In the past, we thought that bad writing was simply the result of making
individual mistakes, such as misspelling a word or dangling a participle.
Malescribes were seen as "weak" or lacking in willpower. They simply weren't
trying hard enough.
But today, we have a better understanding of the problem. We now know that
the tendency toward writing badly is a human condition, and its seed is in
all of us. Individual sins of omission or commission in writing are merely
reflections of that condition. For some people, the disorder is mild, creating
only minor communication problems. But for others, it can be a life-draining
malady.
The goal of the book
The book isn't a comprehensive reference or textbook. Nor does it teach a
particular writing method or style. Instead, the book is designed to help
you become aware of wordiness, formality, incompleteness, and other problems
that stand in the way of clear communication. And as you learn to eliminate
ineffective sentences, you'll be "writing off" jargon, mixed metaphors, cliches,
and more.
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