Learning from Poor Writing

A wise person learns from others' mistakes. Any competent Business Analyst must master written communications. This flog post (flog + blog) presents lessons from unprofessional writing. I try not to pick on common people (e.g., Facebook posters). Instead, I focus on those who ought to know better: mainly, reporters and the news organizations that are too miserly to hire copy editors.

Bent-piped Gaffs

Reporters often accept news releases from companies or government agencies and then post them with minimal editing. That's probably what happened with this story. The text went in one end of the pipe and came out the other end, uncorrected. The quality doesn't speak well of the News Director who posted it under his name. He may be a great reporter or manager, but his proofreading is substandard, even by the news industry's rapidly deteriorating standards.

The USFS manager who probably provided the source text sits on the borderline of forgiveness. Managers reach their position because they can do one or two things well. One of two halo effects result. (a) Since they do something well, they think they can do all things well.  (b) Since they do something well, their managers expect them to do all things well (including writing) and withhold budget for hiring professional tech writers. Both situations can result in unprofessional writing. Most of the time, poor writing does not matter, but when the subject impacts profitability or safety, poor writing can cost jobs or even lives.

• In the opening sentence, using the verb to be equates the fire with the area. That is a logical error. The fire covers 3,791 acres or has burned 3,791 acres, but we shouldn't say the fire is 3,791 acres.
• You don't need to be a firefighter to know the difference between a [Name] Complex Fire and a fire complex. A wildfire complex forms when two or more fires merge. Complex may also be loosely applied to multiple wildfires close enough together to be treated as a single fire. 
• In this case, two fires have merged, but the third remains separate, across the valley. Therefore, the Summit Complex Fire ought to be called Summit Complex Fires. 
• The complex fire should simply be The complex. The complex of fires would be acceptable but wordy. 
• Containment is not something you place on a fire. You don't have 9% containment on the fire, you have 9% containment of the fire. A better headline would state, Summit Complex Fires Containment at 9%.
• 9% is a measurement. You don't spell out measurements.
• Nine-percent should not be hyphenated. The focus of the sentence is on 9% (e.g., the containment has reached 9%). When the unit of measurement might otherwise require pluralizing, we hyphenate the number and the unit of measurement, and we keep the unit in the singular.
• Example: The six-foot statue (not the six feet statue) 
• Percent does not require pluralizing. For example, we would never say, nine percents.
• In lightning caused incidents and heat related illness, the author commits the opposite error by failing to hyphenate. Where a pair of words form Correct: lightning-caused incidents and heat-related illness.
• (Sarcasm Alert) I just love "The fire activity of the McCormick Fire has been especially active...." We wouldn't want to scare people by telling them that the McCormick Fire has been especially active. Let's tell them that the activity has been especially active. Great writing! 
• Competing with the complex fire for best example of redundancy, we have dry fuel moistures. Low fuel moisture would be better. The technical people think in terms of the percentage moisture content in the materials that make up the fuels for wildfires. But a good writer would simply say dry fuels.
• The problem with the final error lies in what it omits. Writing in passive voice commonly leads to ambiguity about who performs the action. 
• A voluntary evacuation has been issued in conjunction with the Tuolumne County Sherriff's Office....
• By the way, you don't issue an evacuation; you issue an evacuation notice or order.
• And Sheriff has one 'r', not two.
• The news release probably came from the US Forest Service spokesman, so I'll fill in the missing detail:
• Corrected: The Forest Service, in conjunction with the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office, has issued a voluntary evacuation notice....

Writing That Bites

The next grammatical atrocity has too many errors for a complete commentary. The points listed below will have to suffice.

• The past participle of bite is bitten. The woman bit the crew member. The crew member was bitten.
• Grammatically, ...in Angels Camp that had wedged implies that Angels Camp did the wedging. 
• The correct pronoun for a person is who, not that. That implies that the thing referred-to is not human.
• Had wedged... and refused changes verb tenses in the middle of the sentence. Had wedged... and had refused adds parallelism.
• The order of the phrases should reflect the importance of the information. The location should not interrupt the actions. A better version of the opening sentence would read,
• An ambulance crew member was bitten while attempting to rescue a woman who refused police orders to come out after wedging herself between two boulders near Angels Creek in Angels Camp.
• The sentence still uses a passive verb, which renders it boring. Splicing too much information into a single sentence makes it even worse. A best version would read,
• A woman bit an ambulance crew member who was attempting to rescue her near Angels Creek in Angels Camp. She had refused police orders to come out after having wedged herself between two boulders.
• The lack of a comma in referred to as the "Paradise" area for a female that... implies that the name refers to a woman. The resulting double entendre should bring a smile to dirty minds.  
• The lack of a comma in a steep ravine who had lodged herself implies that the ravine is a person and that the ravine did the lodging. Again, the writer interrupts the action by inserting the location prematurely in the sentence. A better version of the sentence reads,
• Once at the scene, they found a 21-year-old woman who had lodged herself in a crevasse between two large rocks near the creek at the bottom of a steep ravine about a half mile from the roadway.

The next sentence secured this article's place on my grammatical wall of shame.

• Unable to sit still and while making animated, erratic movements, officers ordered....

Too much coffee, officers? 

The final paragraph opens with an equally awful (although not nearly as funny) mistake.

• It took crews nearly two hours through heavy vegetation and rough terrain, to safely remove the women (sic) from the scene. First, vegetation and terrain are not units of time. Second, the writer blunders yet again by stating the location too early in the sentence. The corrected sentence reads as follows:
• It took crews nearly two hours to safely remove the woman through heavy vegetation and rough terrain.
• Notice that when the obstacles are correctly placed, it becomes clear that from the scene is redundant.

That's it for now. I'm happy with my vent. I hope you found this either amusing or edifying. If you see other examples of atrocious writing, feel free to leave a link in the comments, below.


More to come, later.

Copyright 2017 Richard Wheeler