When Writers Get Carried Away

I love reading and always have, finding a vast array of subject matters interesting. I by no means call myself a writer and do not criticise as one. But I criticise as a reader and offer my perspective.

There is one thing that irritates me to the extreme. Quite often I come across a philosophy article or an academic textbook where I find myself asking: Why is it that I have had to read this sentence three times before I actually understood what the writer was on about? Why are the sentence structures so complicated? Why do they put about fifty million commas in one sentence? Why bother writing for the public if you are not concerned about whether your reader can read your work fluently? In my opinion, a good writer writes in such a way that you don’t have to stop reading for one minute, and don’t want to, no matter what it is they are writing about. They will use appropriate imagery in the right places. They will only use scientific and technical vocabulary if their article is scientific and technical. In short, they will communicate with the reader and write in such a way that the type of audience that will be reading their work will understand perfectly what they are saying, will not have to check their dictionary every five minutes, and hopefully enjoy the experience.

The epitome of my aggravation is an article posted on this very website. ‘To Smoke or Not to Smoke’ by J.L Cranfield has the largest amount of commas, adjectives and irritatingly long words I have ever seen in one article about so simple a topic. The writer uses archaic words such as ‘thusly’, ‘receptacles‘ and ‘micturition’ (Word Processor doesn’t even recognise this one) as if straight out of a Jane Austin novel. A ‘quivering glutinous mass’ is a totally unnecessary (and I must say really stupid) way to describe ‘bias’ and I simply did not understand what wishing to ‘drink in the majestic splendour of Kent’s calcium-rich water table’ had to do with being against the ban on smoking on campus. This kind of imagery is all well and good in a fictional story, but completely out of place done in this overblown way in an article about a smoking ban. How do you expect to get your message across when all your doing is getting on people’s nerves?

It is the kind of thing typical to a student trying to be an academic by throwing in a load of advanced vocabulary, or of someone already an academic whose tiny intellectual world has got the better of him, and he is no longer communicating with his audience but trying to impress them. Well here is a loud and clear message which needs no adjectives: GIVE IT A REST.

By Bobbie Campbell