Professor Rosenblum asked me to post this great essay about writing well if English is your second language. Students have found it very helpful in the past. Take a look!
Writing English as a Second Language, by William Zissner
2 thoughts on “On Writing”
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This article was completely mind-blowing and intriguing. I learned so much and found myself very entertained while reading it. Zissner brought up so many points that make sense, and even while writing this I am thinking about the silly things I’ve been taught to do that make my writing less direct.
As a former ESL student, English always seemed difficult to write and understand. I speak Thai, Hindi, Urdu, English, Spanish, and a little bit of Arabic. Five out of six of those languages stress descriptive and flowery sentences. Throughout high school, my teachers urged me to write complex sentences using elaborate language, in which case I always had a thesaurus nearby. William Zinsser’s piece completely changed my perspective on writing, and I could not agree more with his explanations of concise sentences and active verbs. Complex language takes away writer’s voice, an important concept that allows each writer to differentiate himself/herself from others. Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity are the four key words that I will definitely take away from this reading.