TOW #1 How To Say Nothing In 500 Words by Paul Roberts

This very entry may be an example of it, but I will try my best to refrain from it. The average student, myself included, uses a conglomeration of useless words that put, "a little meat on the bones" (Roberts 55) of the essay he writes. The author of "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words", Paul Roberts, an accomplished English linguist and textbook writer, shows how ranting on and on about nonsense actually is a harmful tactic in essay writing and teaches the reader how to abstain from it.

He directs his talk to students, generally those of higher education, since students are constantly writing essays as assignments, and it isn't rare to see an assignment with an enormous minimum word count. Even though Roberts wrote this in 1958, the basic habits of an essay-writing-student has not changed in the last 60 years. Personally, instead of saying, "I'm writing a TOW right now," I can easily expand this statement into, "Currently, at this moment, a Text of the Week is something that I am writing." Instantly, I more than doubled the amount of words I used and got much closer to the required word count, however large it may be. Roberts wants this habit to stop: it makes it harder for the reader, these kind of essays are almost always weak in content, and the essay will be extremely dull.

Roberts opens with an anecdote that portrays what saying nothing in 500 words looks like in real life, the average student that has to write a 500 word essay in three days about college football, a topic that does not interest him at all. He regurgitates what little information he knows about college football and expands what little he has to say into 500 words using hollow filler words.

This anecdote reminded me so much of myself, and I thought, "What could I do to stop this unattractive habit?" As this thought lingered in my head, he immediately supplied me with techniques to become a better writer that doesn't rely on the acquired ability to elongate meaningless sentences.

His strategy to connect the reader to the story he created allows an instant attraction to the text and a higher possibility of delivering his purpose successfully, a purpose that now I carry. After reading "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words" I made a sacred promise to myself that I will discontinue my nasty habit and follow the guidelines Roberts advised. I hope this is something that will be shown in all my work from here on out, not only in APELC, but within every message I deliver.

"meat on the bone"