Freighting

       The chapter about Freighting begins promising: I, the reader, am encouraged to write longer sentences (cf. Hoffman and Hoffman 96). Not a bad idea—I always struggle with shortening my potentially confusing sentences when writing term papers or the like. But this technique turns out to be unsuitable for me; while I like to string together several clauses that could also be divided into separate sentences—although this would mean not being able to make use of as many of my beloved colons, semicolons, and dashes—and to use complicated but classy verb forms that I am not entirely sure of how to use correctly, Freighting requires the writer to accumulate single words or phrases at the same position, like in one of the characterless examples the authors give: “Bill, my aunt Tina, and all their cronies, chopped, chewed, and utterly pulverized the red, hard, juicy, candied apple” (96-97)—even though they later arrive at the conclusion themselves that “this apple event is not worth developing any further” as it “says absolutely nothing of crucial importance” (97). Exactly. Which is what I hate most when reading a text. 
       On closer examination, however, I have to admit that maybe “my” kind of confusing writing style is not that much different from this kind of confusing writing style. And maybe, just maybe, I like to write in a style that I at the same time hate to read. But at least now I have got an excuse for why my writing is of course acceptable! After all, I do not have to read it myself.
 

Works cited
Hoffman, Gary, and Glynis Hoffman. Adios, Strunk and White. A Handbook for the New Academic Essay. 3rd edition., Verve Press, 2003.