Looking over my two last posts, I find the writing jerks along from subject to subject with almost no effort to smooth the transitions. Grand assertions are made with very little evidence to support them. If not footnotes, then at least citations and attributions of articles and research would help. I complained to my wife about my writing. The guy’s a second rate hack, I said. I wanted to make changes that would double or triple the length of most of the short essays I write.
She talked me out of it on the grounds that people do not want, and will not take the time, to read Internet articles that are much over 500 words. That’s sad, but I think she’s right. The language I find so terse and disconnected doesn’t bother her at all. Laying out a reasonably cogent argument in relatively few words without worrying about anything approaching elegance works just fine for her, and, she says, for most others who read things on the Net.
I find that both understandable and sad at the same time. Well, that’s life, so here’s to a very short essay about the lack of elegance in writing, and why it’s OK (or not).
Works for me. I am a \”second rate reader\” with a short attention span. JD