I recently conducted an editing workshop where I doggedly tried to drive home the point that writing needs to be done in stages and that students should never hand in a first draft (unless a teacher specifically asks for it), etc. We were discussing ways of making sentences better and a student said that she didn’t like messing around with her writing after her first attempt. How you know if what you’re doing is “better”? How do you know you’re not making it worse?

I realized that a lot of what I try to impart to students is something that comes naturally to me. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking consciously about my own editing decisions. I chock up the beautiful and complex prose that you are now sampling to instinct. But where does it come from? How do I make value judgments about my own writing? I know “good writing” when I see, and yet I also know that’s not a good enough answer.

I told the class what I have always been told and what I also believe to be true: better writing and editing are developed over time through reading habits. I encouraged them to read as much as possible of all sorts of materials, from sports pages, and ad copy to novels. I also suggested that they read academic articles and text books out loud every once in a while.

Of course, better writing is not necessarily entirely elusive or subjective. I know that there are guidebooks about style that would probably benefit both me and my students. In fact, as I write this, I am aware that underneath a pile of papers is a book I have been meaning to read for a month: Stunning Sentences by Bruce Ross-Larson from the Effective Writing Series. Perhaps therein lies a “better” answer to this student’s question?