Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Ethics of Writing
The entire point of writing is in the fact that it is meant to be read. As such, the writer's duty to the reader is integral. Coherency in grammar and sentence structure is a must, as is presentation - the proof that one's writing contains proper evidence and is well researched. This does not apply to only essay writing; even in works of fiction, one does not want to read about an act or profession that the writer actually has no experience in. For example, Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms draws credibility from the fact that its author served in the military himself, and could be taken seriously. Those who have set the groundwork before the writer should have homage made to them - in some cases, it would be plagiarism not to, depending on the amount of impact made in their field. Of course, plagiarism itself is frowned upon by the writing community - when writing, one is presenting a personal voice and idea; some say that everything that is written should be able to bring some new idea to the table, no matter how small or subtle. Plagiarism not only steals another person's words, but also their persona and their thoughts. Applied to the physical world, such an act would be called "body-snatching". This would also be frowned upon by society.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Coherency in grammar and sentence structure is a must, as is presentation - the proof that one's writing contains proper evidence and is well researched."
ReplyDeleteIt's true that people will rarely take writing seriously if its not written properly. But is it really unethical to use bad grammer?
That ain't unethical.
ReplyDeleteCoherency in grammar and sentence structure is like a marble floor in a bank. Though the floor does not make the bank more financially secure, it makes it appear so. you wouldn’t trust a bank that had a dirt floor. However the quality of the building does not directly tell us about financial stability of the bank. The dirt floor banking could be the better choice.
To put this into writing terms good grammar and sentence structure does not relate directly to credibility. It only gives the appearance of it.
now while the above statement is true, it does not necessarily mean that you can’t tell anything from the quality of grammar or sentence structure. Going back to the bank analogy, any smart banker is well aware that people wont trust a bank with a dirt floor. Therefore if he wants to appear financial secure he will get a marble floor. So really the only thing you can tell from the floor of a bank is whether or not the bankers wishes to appear credible.
The same thing can be said of writing. If you want to look an example of poor credibility using on a marble floor look at Amanda’s article of the pregnant man. They wanted to appear credible even though they may not be.
However I have to say this, even though the quality of the floor doesn’t directly correlate to financial security, never trust a bank with a dirt floor. Why is this? Because any banker who has a finically stable bank will know that people wont trust it if it has dirt floors. Therefore he will install a marble one. So the question is not trying to see if the marble or dirt floor banks are better, but rather trying to see which marble floor banks are secure.
So the moral for writing is that the real test is trying to figure out which grammatically correct papers are credible, not to see if it is correct and then assume it’s credible.
Holy cow that was a long comment!
Hey guys. I meant that it's "presentation" that will often suggest at credibility, not necessarily the "grammar and sentence structure" part. The hyphened clause was only meant to apply to the last word. Nevertheless, I appreciate the long discussion, Troy. It was an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, "The Red Badge of Courage" has been hailed as a clear-eyed, true-to-life depiction of the Civil War, but it was written by a 24-year-old who had never seen battle in his life; he was born in 1871, six years after the war ended.
ReplyDelete