Define 'Traditional Writing Skills,' please. Oh, and 'classically trained English student,' too...

Reading McGovern’s article “Traditional Writing Skills Don't Work on the Web” made me want to punch him in the face. (Don’t worry, I’m really only violent in theory.) His article hinges on the belief that we’re taught to write “too much content, too much context, not nearly enough focus on the action.” Granted, as an English major my love of reading is pretty much an assumed fact. And it is true that I’ll read almost anything in front of me. (My mom used to joke about how I would re-read the back of the cereal box every morning.) My point is, while I might be more likely to excuse over writing than someone who enjoys reading less, I also know what is taught in writing classes. And a fundamental part of writing is to know your audience. “Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you've told them” is the formula I learned - in middle school. The older I got, the more in-depth I got. Had I used that formula on a paper written in college, I never would’ve gotten any A’s in my English classes.

His comment about a “classically trained English student” had me furiously googling him, and finding out what degree he earned in college. According to his website, he got a Management Science degree from Trinity College. It didn’t surprise me at all that he didn’t have an English degree. Maybe he’s taken enough English classes to claim he knows that it means to be a “classically trained English student,” but as someone with an English degree, I find his views misguided, if not totally false. The written word is always changing. Poets don’t always write sonnets anymore (thank god). Hell, most no longer feel compelled to rhyme (again, thanks god). A news article isn’t written the same way a story in a book is, even if it happens to be a non-fiction book. Inverted triangle, anyone? The who, what, where, when and why of journalism seem to parallel exactly what McGovern is implying is needed in Web content - quick, precise information that’s been pared down to the bare bones. He seems to ignore that writers adapt to their time, and their medium, and he takes for granted that the Web is the only place where people are attacked by their ADD.

Anyways, if I were to write web based content for a company, I would want to “show off all the clever things [I] know.” Mainly, that I’m clever enough to understand my audience.