How do you judge the quality of your own writing? And how will others judge its quality? These are questions that any writer will think about. They concern us particularly when we submit our work for publication.
We all hope that our work will be judged by real readers rather than computers. The recent story on Channel 4 news was presented as a bit of fun, but actually it’s worrying that computer programs are now used to mark some English exams.
The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors tried out one of these programs, developed in the USA, and tested some famous writers with it.
A passage of Hemingway failed the computer test: “lack of care in style of writing”. They then tried Golding’s Lord of the flies, much read in schools, represented by this line:
You could see a knee disturb the mold. Now the other. Two hands. A Spear. A Face.
The computer judged this as having “inaccurate and erratic sentence structure”. While Winston Churchill was sent to the back of the class for promising to ‘fight on the beaches’ then going on ‘fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the street’. This, of course, was dismissed as “too repetitive”.
If we fight against judgement by computer – in the offices, in the classrooms, in the streets – what are the means we should use to judge ourselves? Of course, there’s no easy answer. But perhaps one test that separates us from computers (at least for now) and makes us human, is our ability to listen to the sound of words and follow our emotions as a result. When I run writing workshops this is always the test that works best. Read aloud – to yourself and others. It will give you the best advice.
I was reminded of this when I went to see Jane Campion’s film Bright Star last week. This is the story of John Keats. Beautiful though the photography was, the part that worked best for me was the sound of Ben Whishaw as Keats reading ‘Ode to a nightingale’ over the credits. This, more than anything shown over the previous 100 minutes, demonstrated that Keats lives on simply because he is a great writer.
Can a computer judge your writing?
How do you judge the quality of your own writing? And how will others judge its quality? These are questions that any writer will think about. They concern us particularly when we submit our work for publication.
We all hope that our work will be judged by real readers rather than computers. The recent story on Channel 4 news was presented as a bit of fun, but actually it’s worrying that computer programs are now used to mark some English exams. The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors tried out one of these programs, developed in the USA, and tested some famous writers with it.
A passage of Hemingway failed the computer test: “lack of care in style of writing”. They then tried Golding’s Lord of the flies, much read in schools, represented by this line:
You could see a knee disturb the mold. Now the other. Two hands. A Spear. A Face.
The computer judged this as having “inaccurate and erratic sentence structure”. While Winston Churchill was sent to the back of the class for promising to ‘fight on the beaches’ then going on ‘fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the street’. This, of course, was dismissed as “too repetitive”.
If we fight against judgement by computer – in the offices, in the classrooms, in the streets – what are the means we should use to judge ourselves? Of course, there’s no easy answer. But perhaps one test that separates us from computers (at least for now) and makes us human, is our ability to listen to the sound of words and follow our emotions as a result. When I run writing workshops this is always the test that works best. Read aloud – to yourself and others. It will give you the best advice.
I was reminded of this when I went to see Jane Campion’s film Bright Star last week. This is the story of John Keats. Beautiful though the photography was, the part that worked best for me was the sound of Ben Whishaw as Keats reading ‘Ode to a nightingale’ over the credits. This, more than anything shown over the previous 100 minutes, demonstrated that Keats lives on simply because he is a great writer.
John Simmons is author of 26 ways of looking at a blackberry published by A&C Black.
www.26fruits.co.uk
John Simmons is author of 26 ways of looking at a blackberry published by A&C Black.
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