For this critique, I have decided to examine the
website for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.org. The goal of the website is to attract writers of
all walks of life and all levels of skill to their challenge. During the month
of November, the aim of NaNoWriMo is for all participants to write a 50,000
word novel in thirty days. Every writer works on their own, but log their word
count per day on the website and interact with each as a source of motivation.
Now comes the important question: For something so
laid back, is it necessary to present welcoming information in official style?
The following is the mission statement from the website’s ‘About’ page:
“National Novel Writing Month organizes
events where children and adults find the inspiration, encouragement, and
structure they need to achieve their creative potential. Our programs are
web-enabled challenges with vibrant real-world components, designed to foster
self-expression while building community on local and global levels.”
This
passage, when run through the readability scale, resulted in a Flesch-Kincaid
Reading Ease score of 30 and an average grade level of 16.0. The wording is not
overly intricate, but it is laced with several lengthy words that could easily
be replaced with simpler terminology. Examples include replacing “designed to
foster self-expression” with something akin to “built to strengthen creative
minds” or some such.
Additionally, the passage includes at least two
prepositional phrases with “to achieve their creative potential” and “on local
and global levels.”
Let’s examine another quote from the website. This
piece comes from the ever-attractive Terms of Service:
“By accessing
this website, you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. In
particular, you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or otherwise make
possible, dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its entirety,
for any purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and
solicitations of any kind, including spam. You further agree not to use this
data to enable high-volume, automated, or robotic electronic processes designed
to collect or compile this data for any purpose, including mining this data for
your own personal or commercial purposes. Any use of this data for any other
purpose is expressly forbidden without the prior written permission of the
Office of Letters and Light.”
This
passage rates with an average grade level of 16.7 and on the Flesch-Kincaid
scale with a 25.4. According to the Wikipedia article on Flesch-Kincaid Reading
Ease, anything below a 30 is considered to be easily understood by college
graduates. Additionally, the grade level suggests that this passage is intended
for those higher than 16th grade, or a college graduate. Something like the
terms of service is expected to have such a difficult reading level, but even
from a website which only gains money through donations? What could
NaNoWriMo.org gain from using such high-level jargon?
The only answer I can assume is that the staff
charged with writing these terms is trying to appear professional by keeping a
set of terms of service that someone might expect to see. Also, the website is
built for writer’s, so it may be possible that the maintainers expect users are
well-versed in lengthy words and their definitions.
In this example, there are also uses of appositive,
prepositional phrases, and subordination sentences structures. There is an
example of appositive in the second sentence, on the third line of text: “such
as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and solicitations of any kind.”
This sentence is difficult to decipher, as there is another section of text
between the noun and the appositive.
The subordination is also difficult, as it is the
same segment as the appositive. This part of the sentence is dismissed by the
use of ‘such as’ and surrounded by commas. It is an afterthought, unnecessary,
but offers further and more in-depth description.
Prepositional
phrases are easy to point out, as any segment starting with ‘to’ or ‘of’ is
one. For example, the very last line of the quoted text reads, “of the Office
of Letters and Light.” And in the third sentence, we see another: “to collect
or compile this data.”
We’ll take a look at one more segment of text. The
final piece comes from an FAQ response
for the website:
“You win
NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words of your novel between November 1 and November
30. (Or during Camp NaNoWriMo, just reaching your personal word-count goal.)
There’s no limit on how many people can win! Just be sure that you’ve defined a
novel on our site, and that you validate your novel’s word count at
the end of the month.”
This
piece is considerably easier to read, ranking with Flesch-Kincaid at a score of
74.5—readable by most preteens—and an average grade level of 6.8. This example
is much easier to understand than the other two shown in this assignment. As it
is a critique, I felt it was important to show a side of the website that
wasn’t so formal and difficult.
Although simple to read, this passage yet contains
both coordination and prepositional phrases. The coordination appears
throughout the final sentence, evident by the use of a comma followed by ‘and.’
Prepositional phrases likely do not need to be explained at this point, as they
continue to be led by the use of ‘by,’ ‘of,’ ‘on,’ or ‘at.’
Now back to the original issue expressed in the
title: does NaNoWriMo use official style because it is offering an example to
aspiring authors, or because it is necessary for professionalism? My personal
belief is that it is for professionalism as an organization. As an author who
has attempted the challenge in years past, I have found that the staff often encourages
creative and unique expression. Additionally, as I showed in the final example,
there are uses of informal speech on the website, and often quite frequently.
After perusing the staff listing on their website, I
feel it’s important to mention that the directors of NaNoWriMo are a varied
sort of former English teachers and holders of Bachelors and Masters degrees. This
is not an organization run by people without experience, as all of them are
knowledgeable of creative writing to a fair extent.
I, personally, find their use of official style to
be used in the right places at the right time, such as in the term of service.
For the most part, the website is very relaxed and welcoming, perfect for
aspiring authors who are coming to try their hand at a novel or for experienced
writers who want a challenge.Rae Newby
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