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From: wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Writing
Message-ID: <946@frog.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jul-86 18:42:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: frog.946
Posted: Wed Jul  2 18:42:32 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jul-86 03:32:17 EDT
References: <2671@sdcc6.UUCP> <1445@ihuxn.UUCP> <2679@sdcc6.UUCP> <1452@ihuxn.UUCP> <921@frog.UUCP> <3450@sdcc3.UUCP>
Reply-To: wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert)
Organization: The Church of the Holy Starship
Lines: 43

In article <3450@sdcc3.UUCP> co20wta@sdcc3.UUCP (Bruce Jones) writes:
>In article <921@frog.UUCP> wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert) writes:
>>But if, when I creep line by line through someone's text, suggesting
>>ways to make their ideas stand out more clearly, I'm not teaching 
>>writing, what _am_ I doing?  We both thought I was doing _something_!
>
>You were doing something -- calling for a finer focus on the ideas,
>which in a sense is what writing is all about.  I don't know if this
>should be considered "teaching writing", which  I always thought of 
>as the business of grammarians.

This bothers me.  There is a large body of grammatically correct text
in any journal aimed at grammarians.  _Very_ little of it is
_readable_.

Identifying good grammar with good writing (the generalization that
most of the engineers I've worked with make) is as silly as
identifying having an erection with marriage! Admittedly, good grammar
makes it easier to express your ideas, and if a sentence doesn't
"work" there may well be something wrong with the grammar.  But it's as
likely that there's something wrong with the ideas, their expression,
or the order in which the material is presented.

Reducing all the elements that contribute to making a piece of writing
effective to "good grammar" not only doesn't satisfy me, it seems to
misdirect would-be good writers from other areas that could help them
improve.  The Watergaters usually used tolerably good grammar.  But
that doesn't mean you could tell what they were trying to say (or not
to say!) Reread a segment of the tax code -- grammatically correct,
most likely.

>What did/would _you_ call it?

Working on the documentation, writing.  Neither of us realized that I
was "teaching writing" until we noticed that later documents needed
much less revision than the first in the series did.

				STella Calvert

		Do what thou wilt -- not just a good idea, 

				it's the law!

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