Writing outsourced?

Today I'm reading John McWhorter's article about Kim Kardashian and the decline of oral culture, "Why Kim Kardashian can't write good."  

I'm not sure what to think about this. I think McWhorter is right that the definition of communication is expanding far beyond the confines of the written word; internet access, phones in every pocket, constantly-available video technology that's easily shareable (vines and snapchats) all contribute to the rise in forms of non-text-based communication. 

But as a long-time teacher of writing, I cling to the idea that everyone can and should learn to write at least competently. Writing is still the best form of communication for many situations; while oral culture may trump writing in leisure time, writing certainly is going nowhere when it comes to work. As Edward Tufte has shown us, technologies like PowerPoint and the types of thinking they engender are not sufficient for communicating complicated scientific ideas and key facts to decision-makers. (Now I'm imagining the NASA scientists trying to communicate the Challenger's problems using 6-second Vines.) Well-written, clear, information-dense reports are still the best way to convey a lot of complex information and nuance. And the Internet is made of written content; if things like text-based blogs are in decline (and I'm not sure that they are), the net is still at its heart a textual beast (including all the code that runs it). Gifs and Vines and Youtube videos aren't the engine that keeps things going; written text is.

Perhaps this means that people like me--professional writers and editors who have spent (in my case) decades studying language--will profit. Perhaps writing will be outsourced to a class of professional scribes. Part of me wants to say "yay! Somebody values the intense labor and effort that went into my skills and wants to pay me for it IN ACTUAL MONEY!" But another part of me--the deeply humanist part--says that everyone should be able to express their ideas and make themselves clear to others, and that this ability is at the core of a democratic society. Words and language should not become a tool of the few, at the service only of those willing or able to pay the few. (And I have a funny feeling that somehow the compartmentalization of writing and the consequent demand won't lead to higher wages for writing workers.) 

Perhaps this is why I'm drawn to the particular type of editing I love best: coaching. It's easier for both me and my authors if I just fix the problems with manuscripts. But I love teaching, and I know that most authors who pay for my help want to lbecome better writers. And while I hope that I am not planting the seeds of my own career destruction by coaching ( although it's always important to get multiple sets of eyes on any important document), there's little more thrilling than receiving a very good end-stage manuscript from an author whose writing has improved from our work together. 

Reading: Claire Kehrwald Cook's Line by Line

Today's Useful Resource is Claire Kehrwald Cook's Line by Line.  This book about editing is aimed, not at editors, but at authors who want to self-edit; it offers far more extensive edits--and uses far blunter language--than most editors could (at least without feeling like vivisectionists). I will definitely recommend this text (cheap used copies are readily available on Amazon) to my clients--at least to those clients interested in improving the writing they produce without my help. (I consider my relationship with these highly motivated authors to have a kind of editorial planned obsolescence.) 

But the book is also a helpful resource for the editor. One very useful element is Cook's grammatical review, and the multiple examples that anchor the grammatical material make the principles especially clear. Most grammar books start at much too basic a level. Cook instead assumes a basic conversancy with the parts of a sentence and how they fit together; she aims at helping writers name these sentence chunks and visualize the rules that govern their interactions in an abstract, rather than intuitive, way. I'm finding it a useful refresher course; in fact, I wish I'd re-read this before finishing final edits of my dissertation. 

The organization of the book is clear and useful. Cook breaks down the most common problems afflicting sentences into chapter-sized chunks, which move from larger problems ("loose, baggy sentences") to smaller problems ("mismanaged numbers and references"). I especially appreciate her advice to simply tinker with one's sentences. This messing about with sentence order attends to the different rhetorical impacts of sentences that have the same elements, but that order them differently. This interests me deeply; in my experience, many, many problems with clear writing come from faulty subordination/coordination of ideas caused by sloppy syntactical subordination and coordination.   

I'm currently about halfway through. I'll write a final synopsis when I've finished the last couple of chapters.