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Monday, January 16, 2006

More on the Art of Writing Pretty

After a few contemporaries feted the demise of an important writing program at Dartmouth, I was forced that morning to temporarily forsake my large coffee (with blueberry flavor—I’m weak) and respond with “Me Talk Pretty, Once Edited.” Today in The Dartmouth, the founder and erstwhile benefactor of that program and, I see, Yale Law Alumnus for Alito Joe Asch pens a short history of the program, including why it was and is a necessity. He also tells the story behind an internal report on RWiT, the student-run alternative to Asch’s professional editing program with an inexplicable lowercase ‘i’ that augurs morosely for any chance at improving one’s English skills there.

I agree with most of what Joe says, and it is key for Dartmouth to take the reigns of the Departmental Editing Program if it stubbornly refuses to mandate a year-long regimen of writing training with skilled professors not wont to fill classtime with sallies-of-bombast against the racism of Band-Aids. I disagree with Joe that the money should come out of Dartmouth’s PR budget. (Everyone seems to underestimate the importance of shiny brochures.) But certainly there is waste to be cut. Next November, many United States congressmen will lose their seats because of corruption and zealous pork spending. Dartmouth should conduct some Spring cleaning itself, and the art of writing is a very attractive replacement candidate.

In fact, let’s make the pursuit of top-drawer prose the majority leader in Hanover!

Posted on January 16, 2006 08:15 AM. Permalink