Mission Statement or Impenetrable Morass? You Decide!

It's funny how two things that have no relation to each other can converge because they occur at about the same time. I got a book on writing yesterday as a belated birthday present. The book is The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well, by Paula LaRocque. I've been reading the first section, which describes how to write sentences that are concise and to the point.

I am also taking some on-line classes right now. One of them is a Poli-sci course called "American National Politics." I'm working on a homework assignment for that class that I've been putting off for about a week now. The teacher asked us to go to one of several suggested sites dealing with either campaigns or voting, and then describe how it agrees or disagrees with the opinions in the textbook. I'm on the "About Us" page for one of those sites right now. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble working out what this group is about, because all I can do is marvel at how they're breaking just about every tip I read in that writing book.

Take this sentence as an example:

"Founded in 1999 in the middle of what turned out to be the final great policy debate to be conducted fully within an old, twentieth-century policy paradigm that centered on a limits-based approach to policy, the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) started out with a vision."

  

First off, the sentence begins with that the book described as a pointless lead-in. "Founded in 1999..." What was founded? I mean, I realize that since I'm on their website I know what they're called, but that's even less reason to hold it off until the end of the sentence. I mean, it's not like they're trying to ramp up suspense. This is a biography, not a thriller. And "what turned out to be" is word cruft. It serves no purpose. 

 

More needless words are highlighted in the next part of the sentence. "...the final great policy debate to be conducted fully within an old, twentieth-century policy paradigm that centered on a limits-based approach to policy..." The "to be" in that sentence only creates tense confusion. Are they talking about the past or the future? The context shows they're talking about the past, so "to be" is unnecessary. Also, it makes the sentence passive instead of active. "...old, twentieth-century..." As opposed to new twentieth-century? "Paradigm" is a buzz word, and has no semantic value in this context. But what's the easiest way to tell this whole section is clunky? I have no idea what any of it means. Maybe if I were a political analyst, I'd be nodding in agreement. But I'm not, I'm a layperson. And I don't think it's too much to ask that an "About Us" page be written for a layperson.

 

The rest of the paragraph is just as bad. However, the paragraph after it is much more concise. It's like it was written by a different person. Or perhaps by the same person after he closed his dictionary, took a deep breath, and said what he wanted to say. It makes me see everything I read today in a new light. And I'm determined to put the book's lessons to use.

 

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights