This article by Jonathan Morrow on “good” writing irritates me—7 Bad Habits You Learned in School.

The first paragraph explains much of what wrong with the article:

What is good writing?

 

Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse).

Really? That’s what people learned in school, to write like Jane Austen? I don’t think so. Hopefully people learned to write for their audience. If their audience wants Jane Austen, give them Jane Austen, but very few people actually want Jane Austen.

And I love this sentence, “They’ll tell you [good writing] makes a point and supports it with evidence.” That sounds incredibly uncontroversial, but not to Morrow. The only thing he cares about it whether writing is interesting, not whether or not it is supported anything in the real world. Morrow’s 5th "bad habit” people learned in school was “Leaning on Sources.” Heaven forbid that your writing pertains to reality. Writing is so much more interesting if you aren’t constrained by truth or the facts.

Morrow’s article is really a few thoughts about what makes compelling writing for certain types of fact-less blogging. It should not be confused with what makes good writing.