What I Like About You

The perception that writing is "all subjective" is one I have to fight all the time. Many students seem to have received the impression that getting a good grade in writing classes is about "what the teacher likes."

I can't help but wonder if this comes from various seemingly arbitrary rules. The "I" rule is one. Many writing teachers simply ban it. That is probably easier than explaining the appropriate ways to use it--and the pitfalls of relying on it in argumentative writing. Other teachers come up with lists of "pet peeves"; these are often rules and conventions that are somewhat flexible--or, perhaps undergoing change, since language does change--and for which the teacher has a preferred form. A common example of this is the use of gender neutral language. (Here's the Grammar Girl's take on that one.)

What would we poor writing teachers do if we had to explain ourselves EVERY time one of these issues comes up? Language has so many rules and so much flexibility and changes so constantly that we can't always articulate every single reason why one word works in a sentence where another sounds awkward, why a comma rule that holds in most cases can be tossed in others, or even why sentence fragments are sometimes just fine. As soon as I've explained that the most common English sentence follows a Subject-Verb-Object pattern and that this pattern is the easiest for the reader to grasp, a brilliant sentence shows up that utterly contorts that pattern and works. Do I mark this down to be consistent and avoid the "just liking" it accusation? No.

Rules never seem to take into account context. Is the writer deliberately choosing a fragment? Or, is the writer unable to recognize sentence fragments? I'm pretty sure that I can tell the difference--I'm a highly trained reader of texts, after all, and I have a specialized knowledge of language that allows me to make informed judgements. Can I explain why a "mistake" or breaking the rules in one case is fine and works, but needs to be corrected in another? Probably. Will I always explain? Probably not. Does that mean evaluating writing is all subjective? Absolutely not.

Ah, all those little rules--of which, as linguists point out, we only know a portion--make for some big confusion about "good" writing. Here is one definition of good writing: a well-reasoned, thoughtful, insightful argument supported by evidence employed in a rigorous and responsible way. It's not subjective, but neither is it simple. And that complexity may just add to the trouble!