From time to time, I get to cruise through the M.P. bio section on the various parties’ websites. Usually, they are pretty mundane summaries highlighting a parliamentarians efforts to help their constituents, affect change locally or nationally, and sometimes even save Christmas.
Others are a lesson in the importance of editing. Rick Dykstra’s is an example of that. I have not met Mr. Dykstra, and really don’t know anything about him other than that he is from St. Catherines, and can only presume that he is a perfectly capable M.P. His bio, however, informs me that he has “diversified” experience, and was a twice-elected city councilor (which may be different than a two-term councilor, or may mean that there was a couple of times he was not elected but was still a councilor).
Now, I am being snippy, but for a party that has an M.O. of being ruthless about message control, you figure that they could have found some junior-level flunky to go through 120 or so short paragraphs and make sure that they read reasonably well. These aren’t just little details, these are how we get to know the people that (in this case) sit in government caucus and help govern this country, and when they make information public, it should strive to be in as clear and concise prose as is possible. I took marks from students for awkward language in a first year history class, the same should be expected of people that work on the hill.
For more on my ongoing battle against poor writing, see here.
Fellow Travellers 
May 28th, 2007 
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