
Shell scripts to improve your writing, or "My advisor rewrote himself in bash." - mbrubeck
http://matt.might.net/articles/shell-scripts-for-passive-voice-weasel-words-duplicates/
======
blahedo
There's no problem with having a house style, of course, but it's obnoxious to
claim that following one particular stylebook makes one a "better writer".
Particularly obnoxious in the linked article are the claims that "the removal
of all adverbs from any technical writing will be a net positive," and
likewise for "the removal of the passive voice".

Adverbs are indispensable to good writing, technical or otherwise.
Notwithstanding the claims of a variety of self-proclaimed experts, no good
writer will omit adverbs, and no writer _can_ successfully omit all adverbs
without at the very least sounding incredibly choppy and awkward. The author
of the linked article included quite a few; even just counting those adverbs
that end in "-ly", I found ten (fortunately mechanically really genuinely
personally frequently unfortunately solely rightfully technically), and there
was even an adverb ("so") _right there in the sentence where he was condemning
adverbs!_

As for the passive, the author acknowledges the difficulty of avoiding them,
but claims that their removal is still an improvement, though without
explaining why. In fact, it makes the writing seem rather choppy (as if the
author had to spend too much time paralysed by a set of rules to follow to
actually be able to make the text flow). And despite apparently putting in a
great deal of effort to avoid them, the author _still_ included at least two
that I found in a quick reread: "drawn for them" in the "beholder words"
section, and "accepted for publication" right at the bottom. In both cases,
the result is perfectly readable, not at all fuzzy, and entirely unremarkable
---which shoots a rather gaping hole in the argument that there is anything
wrong with a passive voice.

I feel sorry for his grad students, and only hope that when they come out the
other end, they will sensibly discard the silly mandates of their advisor,
rather than perpetuating the myths....

~~~
khafra
For experimental contrast:

I have no problem with a house style, but the claim that following one
particular stylebook makes one a "better writer" annoy me. Worse, the linked
article claims that "the elision of all adverbs from any technical writing,"
and "the removal of the passive voice," "constitute a net positive."

Good writing, technical or otherwise, requires adverbs. Notwithstanding the
claims of a variety of self-proclaimed experts, no good writer will omit
adverbs, and no writer _can_ successfully omit all adverbs without sounding
incredibly choppy and awkward. The author of the linked article included a
few; counting those adverbs that end in "-ly," I found ten (fortunately
mechanically really genuinely personally frequently unfortunately solely
rightfully technically), and _in the sentence condemning adverbs_ he included
an adverb ("so").

As for the passive, the author acknowledges the difficulty of avoiding them,
but claims that their removal still improves writing, though without
explaining why. In fact, it makes the writing seem rather choppy (as if the
author had to spend too much time paralysed by a set of rules to follow and
had none left to make the text flow). And despite putting in a great deal of
effort to avoid them, the author _still_ included two or more that I found in
a quick reread: "drawn for them" in the "beholder words" section, and
"accepted for publication" at the bottom. In both cases, I find the result
perfectly readable, not at all fuzzy, and entirely unremarkable--which shoots
a rather gaping hole in the argument against the passive voice.

I feel sorry for his grad students, and hope that when they come out the other
end, they discard the silly mandates of their advisor, rather than
perpetuating the myths....

~~~
blahedo
I'm not sure exactly what you're attempting here, but you made a lot of
changes to text involving neither adverbs nor passives, and you missed several
adverbs. What was this trying to experimentally prove, exactly?

------
raffi
My style checker finds weasel words, passive voice, and repeated words (a
lexical illusion). It also finds confused words as well (another lexical
illusion). It's not integrated with LaTeX but it is available for Firefox,
Google Chrome, and OpenOffice.org.

<http://www.afterthedeadline.com>

~~~
Groxx
> _and repeated words_

One of the things I hate most about English (and this is by no means a rant on
how stoopid English is) is that "that that" can be grammatically correct. It's
a minor thing really, but I could _swear_ it's mocking me some days.

~~~
bdr
Check out the "Lexical ambiguity" section of
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sent...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences)

~~~
Groxx
haha, nice, hadn't seen that one before. I love the last Japanese one (chosen
because I've had some Japanese)

    
    
      Touou wo ooou. (東欧を覆おう。) meaning "Let's cover eastern Europe."

------
andolanra
The passive gets a bad rap a lot of the time, but getting rid of passives
isn't always the best way to go about things. An approach which forbids all
passive verbs often results in less readable or less appropriate prose,
because there are honestly places where the passive is the correct thing to
use. Broadly speaking, it's better to educate yourself about those situations
than to treat it as wholly bad and eliminate it entirely.

I'd go into more detail, but Language Log has discussed it in great depth:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://languagelog.ldc.u...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/+passive+voice)

------
dododo
there are two gnu utilites that are useful for writing: gnu style and gnu
diction. <http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html>

diction finds common mistakes. style gives some metrics (may or may not be
useful, YMMV).

they have a similar theme as this article.

------
jgrahamc
My doctoral supervisor also taught me to write and it was very, very valuable.
It enabled me to write for newspapers later and write my book. Learning to
write is important because it helps you to see the subject you are writing
about clearly.

In ReWork, the 37 Signals' guys mention that if they have the choice between
two potential hires of equal ability, they'll choose the one who's a better
writer.

~~~
tomjen3
Sure they do - but that isn't really surprising; why not take the better
writer? It might be useful, can't hurt and there is no downside.

The really interesting thing is _how_ much they are willing to compromise;
would they prefer a mediocre programmer with flair for writing? If not, it is
just meaningless platitudes.

~~~
Encosia
Prose and programing aren't as unrelated as they might seem. Ultimately, both
are exercises in using a particular set of grammar and syntax to convey
intent.

