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But there is a game! It's called Write On Par. It teaches concise writing, playfully. Because no writer has the patience to sit through a grammar class...and n

• jacobolus 10y ago
  This idea is cute, but it’s a poor substitute for a real writing tutor/coach/teacher. It repeatedly returns: “Your response seems incomplete, so we set your score to the length of the original sentence. If we're mistaken, please drop us a line with a screenshot of this screen”, without any indication of how to fix the solution to be acceptable. I suppose it’s fishing for some specific keywords? It doesn’t seem to have any full natural language model or conceptual model of the idea of the paragraph, so it can’t point out awkward or confusing phrases. The proposed “par” and “record” sentences are not especially clear or elegant prose, or even especially short for conveying the ideas in the paragraph, and the metric (fewest characters used) is in general a weak heuristic for clear writing. The prompts don’t offer any list of essential vs. superfluous information, or even an explanation of the paragraph’s context and audience, so a proofreader/rewriter has to guess precisely what the author needed to say, and what the appropriate tone/style is. I ultimately don’t understand how this game teaches writing any better than just trying to rewrite random sentences found in a book. Or for that matter, just having an email conversation with a friend about some random topic.
  • m52go 10y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. You're right that it's crude, lame even. That's why I dragged my feet on releasing it for weeks. But if you're getting the incomplete message, chances are your response is actually incomplete. We've had over 7,000 submissions and only 2 issues so far. Feel free to send me an example at steve at writeonpar dot com...I'm curious why you keep seeing that. Writing is subjective. Your idea of elegant prose is different from mine, especially when context isn't specified. I'll concede the game is more of a tool to practice good grammar & clarity than a way to teach it, but I don't agree that it's no different from rewriting random sentences in a book. The par/record sentences are helpful for a lot of people. The timer is a simplistic but effective way to create mental pressure. And when we add videos explaining the journey from lousy to concise, players will actually learn the reasons for lousiness and techniques for clarity. And, consistent practice trumps everything. Strange as it is, I've tried to pick examples that make the game less boring than any class/book/lecture you'll find anywhere. The result: this tool helps a number of people consistently practice writing better...something that wasn't otherwise happening.
    • scholia 10y ago
      > Writing is subjective. Your idea of elegant prose is different from mine, especially when context isn't specified. Yes, the context being the important thing. Creative writing is somewhat subjective, but other fields have more established conventions. The style Joyce uses for the Ulysses' final chapter would not be appropriate in an instruction manual. Even if we don't deal in absolute rights and wrongs, we certainly have established conventions for things that are right and wrong in defined contexts. I taught an English 150 course, Technical Writing for Engineers, and can testify that the conventions can be taught and learned. Also, some students can understand and execute the principles better than others!
      • m52go 10y ago
        > Creative writing is somewhat subjective, but other fields have more established conventions. Yup. I began with the goal of helping business writers (mainly marketers). Even that's subjective, but we're doing what we can. Creative writing is a totally different beast.
• microcolonel 10y ago
  Cool site, I sent in a minor issue. I can tighten the prose further, but the tool then says it's incomplete; though, perfect being the enemy of good, I am glad you released it.
  • m52go 10y ago
    Thanks! It's far from perfect...I'm constantly working to refine it.
• rewrew 10y ago
  Writing is a craft, and it's a freaking hard one that takes combining a lot of skills plus a lot of discipline and hard work. If you don't have the patience to sit through something as simple as as a semester-long grammar class at your local community college as one aspect of learning the fundamentals you need to succeed, then most likely writing isn't the career path for you.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    Reading a lot is probably more useful than taking a class on grammar (for one thing, grammar is pretty easy to fix without altering a work).
    • m52go 10y ago
      Right. Plus, grammar is only one component of concise writing. Many of the original writing samples in the game are grammatically correct but still terribly lousy.
  • m52go 10y ago
    Very true. But from another perspective: even someone with the patience to sit through a grammar course will only learn about the colon in theory. This tool allows a player to see a colon being used, wonder why, learn why (explanatory videos coming soon), and then use the colon in practice. Learning by doing is much more effective than learning theory, in my opinion.
  • FuNe 10y ago
    Hm, dunno. I'd say writing is about having something to say. Especially something other people want or (more importantly) need to read. I don't think that Charles Bukowski was particularly disciplined or educated for example.
    • lgieron 10y ago
      He was extremely disciplined - he made himself write every day after his grueling day job, for years (decades?), until he finally started getting some traction.
• bobwaycott 10y ago
  I wonder how many writers ever sat through a grammar class[0]. Of course, I somewhat romantically consider a writer to be a person who doesn't learn to be one. [0]: I exclude the compulsory educational curriculum of childhood here. I've never personally known a writer who bothered to study grammar, particularly in such a manner as would have ever been a burden.