{"id":914,"date":"2014-01-24T15:50:53","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T02:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=914"},"modified":"2014-03-11T20:24:33","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T07:24:33","slug":"think-clearly-write-clearly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=914","title":{"rendered":"Think clearly, write clearly."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pen2\"<\/a>There was a time when newspaper readers who wanted to comment on a particular news item or opinion piece would sit down and pen a Letter to the Editor.\u00a0 The editor \u2013 or more often a sub-editor \u2013 would then select some of the letters for publication in the journal.\u00a0 Occasionally, a letter might make the following day\u2019s edition; but, more often than not, it appeared two or three days later.<\/p>\n

I am reliably informed by a chap whose sub-editing duties at one stage included preparing the letters for publication that most were, to some extent, edited.\u00a0 \u2018Ramblers\u2019 were condensed; spelling was tidied; grammar and punctuation were often tweaked to conform to prevailing conventions.\u00a0 As a result, while the content of individual letters might have sometimes been mad, bad, or sad, the reader could contemplate the content without having to fight her way through a forest of random tos, toos, and twos, theirs, theres, and they\u2019res, and allusions and illusions.<\/p>\n

Then, along came online publications and the ability of readers to post their comments directly, without having to go through an editing process.<\/p>\n

Within minutes or hours (rather than days), a published news item or opinion piece can now attract 20 or 30 or 100 \u2018reader\u2019s comments\u2019.\u00a0 And each comment can sometimes attract four or five or ten comments on the comment.<\/p>\n

Earlier today, I read a thoughtful opinion piece on the problems facing the higher education sector.\u00a0 I then spent about ten minutes reading some of the many reader\u2019s comments that it had attracted.\u00a0 And not one of the comments was without several basic written English errors.\u00a0 Not one of these people who had all the answers to the problems facing the higher education sector could write a simple, readable paragraph.<\/p>\n

Of course, some people would say: Does it really matter?\u00a0 You could still work out what it was that they were trying<\/i> to say.\u00a0 It\u2019s the thought that counts, not the way it\u2019s written.<\/p>\n

Well, no.\u00a0 If you have something to say, you need to say it in clear, concise language.\u00a0 Because if you can\u2019t write clearly, it suggests to me that you can\u2019t think clearly.\u00a0 And why would I care about the opinion of someone who is incapable of thinking clearly?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time when newspaper readers who wanted to comment on a particular news item or opinion piece would sit down and pen a Letter to the Editor.\u00a0 The editor \u2013 or more often a sub-editor \u2013 would then … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions\/915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}