stephen <srdiamond@gmail.com> wrote in
news:d9662cc6-3f28-4484-8522-b1ae39788bac@b5g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
"Disputed Issues: Controversies in legal research and writing" --
Understand written persuasion, to find a persuasive legal ghostwriter.
New article: "A Rare Shortcut to Better Writing"
http://disputedissues.blogspot.com/2008/04/rare-shortcut-to-better-writ
ing.html
Stephen Diamond
I ask for forgiveness in advance for my snarkiness.
Here a quote from the url given:
<quote>
The physical aspect of writing is little considered, but the method used
to transform thought into writing creates a bottleneck for thought, which
draws upon a limited pool of cognitive resources, some used in the
physical labor of externalizing thought.
</quote>
I challenge anyone to guess the magic shortcut from this sentence. In
fact, I challenge anyone to derive the slightest meaning from this
sentence.
The answer is *** Spoiler Alert *** to increase your typing speed!
Then, my friend, you must be the slowest typist on the planet.
I set my standard for writing from the dean of my college, who said of
his memos that they had to be so clear that one could be understand them
without reading them. You fall well short of his standard: your writing
is opaque.
Part of the problem is you strangle your reader in abstraction. In a
sample of 40 words, fully one third are abstract concepts or metaphorical
constructions -- a "bottleneck of thought," a "pool of cognitive
resources," and so on. You are so deep in abstract prattle that you've
missed the absurd construction of your sentence. Perhaps the physical
act of writing is "little considered," and perhaps typing (sorry, the
method used to transform thought into writing) creates a "bottleneck for
thought." However, the first idea (unsupported by evidence at the url)
is not related to the second (also unsupported) by the contrasting
conjuction "but."
Perhaps you meant to say that *you* think that a low wpm impedes clear
writing, even though *no one else* thinks so. But if you're correct, the
effects of slow typing would be independent of anyone's consideration.
In your article you claim that
"Each sensory modality has a channel capacity that is semi-autonomous
from other channels,..."
I doubt that this has any concrete meaning, let alone any neurological
basis.
I leave you with the admonition of Richard Mitchell, the Underground
Grammarian, to heed Ben Jonson's words that
Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,
whose words do jarre; nor his Reason in Frame,
whose Sentence is preposterous.
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