Icarus on essays.

[icarus]

I'm working on an essay for school, and have done (as can be expected) many of them over the last two semesters in fact I've done a lot of them over the last few months. I'm just as capable as anyone in padding these things out with overly complex sentence structures, intellectual-sounding meanderings and furthermores. I can write a long essay, no problem.

I have no difficulty at all in making the page count. In fact anyone who's spoken with me knows I can run on and on. Ad nauseum.

But I think that this is terrible writing, and I'm having to beat back the bad habits I'm developing in writing essays again in my fanfic. It creates bad habits. Conciseness is valuable in business and creative writing, but the essay form and required page counts reward the verbose. In business you have to be concise. For creative writing you need to be clear and pithy. Yet essays reward all the wrong things.

I'm famous for my long sentences. I once in a school diagramming exercise wrote a sentence that went on for a paragraph without being a run-on sentence. The teacher thought it was hilarious, though the person who had to diagram it wasn't too happy. The essay form and the requisite page counts encourages worthless digressions and a fatuous tone that the majority of readers find some difficulty appreciating. Essay page counts encourage pointless tangents, and for some reason this style of writing brings out a fatuous tone that nobody likes to read. Strategies for increasing page counts and sounding more intelligent include: passive voice, past and present perfect tense, complex sentence structures and the inclusion of related but not particularly relevant facts. It's rife with passive voice, past perfect tense, long over-complicated sentence structures and a complete inability to get to the point.

The essay form therefore lends itself to a certain lack of clarity. I call it death prose.

We must do this. I will do this.

But hear this, oh college students: Most of what is taught in writing the essay form is not particularly valuable outside of school. You'll spend the rest of your business careers unlearning this shit.

Comments

[adred.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, indeed.
Just aside, as I know you love journalism ... I have found it has become more difficult (for me) to be descriptive in creative writing because of the training-to-be-concise.

Re:

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's good for internet writing though. People are more likely to read what keeps moving.

Icarus

Re:

[adred.livejournal.com]

Love the Snape icon!

Re:

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Credit lizardspots for that. Woncerful artist.

Icarus