Writing Exercise

Here's an interesting exercise.

Read this post by Jeff Jarvis. Warning- it's calculated to boil the blood of most Common Room scholars.

Now take a deep breath and read this response by Hugh Hewitt.

Next take notes. Which man sounds angrier? Why? What words and phrases seem to carry more bitterness? Make a short list of some of the harshest points. Now rewrite them so that they still communicate the author's meaning, but in a gentler fashion.

In Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick complains that Beatrice 'speaks poniards, and every word stabs.' Beatrice is very funny. But is she winsome and persuasive?

Try, for a moment, to ignore the content of the above articles and judge only on style. Which of them is more persuasive? What can you learn and apply to your own writing from these two articles?

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Update One: The Headmistress botched it again. This post is not by Pipsqueak.

Update Two: We are shocked and a little flustered to learn that Jeff Jarvis of the Buzz Machine has taken notice of our writing assignment. He says he's auditing the course. We didn't know the textbook could audit the course, but we won't be so foolhardy as to argue with Mr. Jarvis about it.