Jose Carillo's English Forum
English Grammar and Usage Problems => Use and Misuse => Topic started by: Miss Mae on September 07, 2013, 08:56:58 PM
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How judicious is "judicious writing"?
In H. P. Lovecraft’s Advice to Aspiring Writers, 1920 (http://H. P. Lovecraft’s Advice to Aspiring Writers, 1920), the author had advised: "No aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules. … All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost." How judicious then "judicious writing" should be? I don't think I have read more than a hundred...
P.S.
According to her, too: "Popular magazines inculcate a careless and deplorable style which is hard to unlearn, and which impedes the acquisition of a purer style." What would you say about this?
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Judicious writing means writing that shows discernment, prudence, and sensibleness; it is writing that shows mental, grammatical, and stylistic discipline on the part of the author as well as respect for the reader’s intelligence and sensibility. In practical terms, judicious writing is good, understandable, level-headed writing.
The opposite of judicious writing is tendentious writing, which is writing marked by strong personal, social, racial, religious, political, or ideological bias; it is an exposition that’s more interested in giving vent to what’s in the mind of the writer than in what the reader wants or needs to know. In practical terms, tendentious writing is bad, prejudiced, sometimes muddle-headed writing.
This is really all I can say about the subject.
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Thank you.