One of the most important skills I try to teach my college composition students is to make their language concise. We spend at least one class period each semester taking long, wordy sentences and whittling them down to the least number of words needed to convey the idea. Something really clicks with them when they see a 24 word sentence reduced to a more direct and meaningful sentence of 12 words. They see the discarded words are nothing more than useless crap standing between the reader and the author's point.
Today I will be taking this phrase into my composition classes for their analysis: "It's not a simple yes/no because there are different pieces and I would've gone about assessing the situation differently, which might have caused us to end up at the same place, but I think more could've been done was, what's the nature of the opposition?"
This was Herman Cain’s response to journalists when asked about his position on Libya and his evaluation of Obama’s actions there.
The guru of writing concisely is George Orwell, whose rules for writing included, “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” Orwell also said, “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
If I have taught my students anything, their rewriting of Cain’s response will be a simple, “I don’t know.” All the rest is just useless crap, pure wind, brought to us by Herman Cain, “The New Voice.”
Today I will be taking this phrase into my composition classes for their analysis: "It's not a simple yes/no because there are different pieces and I would've gone about assessing the situation differently, which might have caused us to end up at the same place, but I think more could've been done was, what's the nature of the opposition?"
This was Herman Cain’s response to journalists when asked about his position on Libya and his evaluation of Obama’s actions there.
The guru of writing concisely is George Orwell, whose rules for writing included, “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” Orwell also said, “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
If I have taught my students anything, their rewriting of Cain’s response will be a simple, “I don’t know.” All the rest is just useless crap, pure wind, brought to us by Herman Cain, “The New Voice.”
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