Williams On Ethics and Epilogue
Williams, the writer of this article, is a wise writer and reader. In this article on ethical
writing, Williams, the author, is trying to discuss whether a writer should write an
article far more complex than needed. Also, he mentions how readers should treat the
articles of writers and how writers and readers should share equal responsibility for
written works. Then he discusses how writers should treat the style of writing.
Ethical Responsibilities of Writers and Readers
In this chapter, Williams talks about how writers should treat their writing as they
would expect other writers to do. Also, he mentions that a reader should read carefully
only if the writer of what he is reading writes carefully. That means if the writer writes
badly or does not intend to help the reader understand their work, the reader should
not waste time on it. The same applies to writers. This is the meaning of ethical
responsibility: a writer and a reader are equally responsible for the work, and if one
tries hard, the other will be obligated as well.
Ethics of Style
In this chapter, the author mentions how writers should treat the style of their work so
that mistakes or misunderstandings can be avoided.
· Unintended Obscurity: Williams argues that one should not use complex words or
structures to make the text obscure. This means writers are obliged to check the
meaning of their work and simplify it.
· Intended Misdirection: When the author mentions this, he gives examples of a car
seller misleading customers by not directly pointing out the actor of some action. He
also points out that, based on the first ethic, you should fight back the same way.
Rationalizing Opacity
In this chapter, the author points out that one should not rationalize his opacity. This is
usually because authors want readers to understand their intention but refuse to realize
that readers do not have to read it. Here I quote: “We owe readers an ethical duty to
write precise and nuanced prose, but we ought not assume that they owe us an
indefinite amount of their time to unpack it.” One should not ask readers to do
everything just to understand a single sentence.
Salutary Complexity/Subversive Clarity
Williams mentions two ideas that argue complexity is good for deep thinking and
clarity is a way to oversimplify some important messages. However, Williams
manages to beat them at their own game by pointing out that complexity is exactly
how elites exclude the ordinary. Also, clarity is just “a value that is created by
society,” rather than, as some conspiracy theorists claim, something made by
authority. That is why we should keep words clarified for the same reason we clarified
them in the first place.
Extended Analysis of Abraham Lincoln
In this section, the author analyzes how Lincoln, the president, wrote to mislead
readers. It was intentional because Abraham Lincoln wanted to protect the South from
being punished and mislead readers to believe the responsibility for war was not
really on any side. He also tries to convince both sides that slavery ceased not because
of the war, and after that part, he returns to “American Style.” By showing the way
Lincoln writes, Williams tells readers how we should analyze Lincoln’s writing using
what we learn.
Epilogue
Williams concludes what he has just discussed: what good writing is. He also
mentions that the answer could be complicated since we have different definitions of
good. We should avoid dense writing by “reading textbooks that have been written,
rewritten, revised, and edited to make them clear to first-year students.”
Conclusion
In this article, Williams talks about the definition of writing ethics and several
examples of not being ethically responsible. Williams also defends his idea, which is
mainly about making sentences and expressions clear. He points out that some
popular ideas against his view are wrong and gives enough evidence to prove it.
Reflection Analysis
I want to say that what I learned in this article of Williams’ is worth more than every
lesson my parents teach me on language and writing. There is a responsibility in
writing for any writer and a responsibility in reading for every reader. If I may write
an article or just chat, I should apply what I learned today. There is also a particular
idea I learned from the first chapter of this article: I should not waste my time on
words that are ridiculously complicated and maybe even intended to be so. According
to the mutual ethical responsibility, we should only read hard if the writer tries hard.
However, there is a conclusion I made that is not quite what Williams agreed: I think
we could use some writing that is ethically bad. Just like what Lincoln did, we can
make things better and everyone happy using an obscured way of writing. We should
critically use these ethically bad skills to make our lives happier.
