top | item 5619242

(no title)

npc | 13 years ago

I'm going to try to be nice and give you some advice: don't write like that. Constructing these overwrought sentences with the dashes and the semicolons and the vocabulary and whatnot just makes you look like an insecure sophomore trying to cover up inexperience with excessive verbiage. Which is probably accurate, but oh well. The purpose of writing isn't to make you look smart, it's to communicate your thoughts clearly and convincingly, and writing to show off all your fancy college-boy book lernin' is just going to antagonize your audience. You're still in school, my advice is to take a writing course and listen to what they say.

discuss

order

seanlinehan|13 years ago

Thanks. I switch between being overly concise and overly verbose. Today is an overly verbose day. I'm working on finding a cool median.

LowKarmaAccount|13 years ago

'Over' is already an adverb. If you want to modify a word with 'over', combine the two words or use a hyphen, as in 'over-concise'. Although 'overly' is now common usage, it is still looked down upon by the literati.

There is nothing wrong with using dashes, but if you do, use the correct dash. The em dash is U+2014. If you cannot type an em dash, the custom is to use two en dashes.

magwildwood|13 years ago

If you care, try switching many of these sentences from passive to active voice. It helps to tighten up your writing. Sometimes it helps for dramatic effect, but excessive use of passive voice slows down your writing. Also, watch your redundancies and overuse of certain words.

gems|13 years ago

>Constructing these overwrought sentences with the dashes and the semicolons and the vocabulary and whatnot just makes you look like an insecure sophomore trying to cover up inexperience with excessive verbiage.

You're uncomfortable with how somebody speaks, so you call them insecure. Classic.

By the way, there was nothing sophisticated about the content or construction of the parent post. And if there was, maybe you should consider carrying the burden of trying to understand it instead of dragging us down to your idea of how people ought to communicate.

eli_gottlieb|13 years ago

Oy, some of us actually do talk like that.