All: Bad Writing ~ Good Book

This is some bad writing. It's from a professor of American history at the University of Hartford.

History-making heroism, Stephanie Capparell means to demonstrate in this admiring account of the Pepsi-Cola Company’s pioneering — but largely unsung — “special-markets sales staff,” ought not to be measured solely by the fame it attracts. She’s right. Inconceivable without the giants of the ballpark and the ring, demonstrations and courtrooms, the movement for African-American civil rights depended even more on the mostly unknowable actions of millions, black and white, who created new ways of thinking and working and acting within and across racial lines.

Whoa! This is way too complicated. Professor Goldstein is trying to squeeze too much information into one sentence.

History-making heroism, Stephanie Capparell means to demonstrate in this admiring account of the Pepsi-Cola Company’s pioneering — but largely unsung — “special-markets sales staff,”ought not to be measured solely by the fame it attracts.

In red is the basic sentence. In orange is a descriptive clause, which could easily be its own sentence. In yellow, a descriptive clause within the descriptive clause. William Faulkner can do these, and make it work. Most of us can't.

She’s right. Inconceivable without the giants of the ballpark and the ring, demonstrations and courtrooms, the movement for African-American civil rights depended even more on the mostly unknowable actions of millions, black and white, who created new ways of thinking and working and acting within and across racial lines.

Red: a long descriptive clause referring to "the civil rights movement". But until we know that, its hard to figure out where the sentence is going, and how the two parts of that (giants. . . ring/ demonstrations. . . courtroom) go together. Orange: the core sentence. Yellow: another descriptive clause, chock-a-block full of action ("thinking" and working and acting").

Here's paragraph two.

“The Real Pepsi Challenge” begins with a creative, dynamic white New York businessman, a politically connected, progressive Republican turnaround specialist named Walter S. Mack Jr., who took over Pepsi in 1938. Mack, in his own words “an unrepentant capitalist and a liberal” who enjoyed playing, as Capparell puts it, “scrappy David to the Goliath that was Coca-Cola” (Pepsi’s 1939 sales were under $5 million, compared with Coca-Cola’s $128 million), decided to strengthen Pepsi’s hold on the “Negro market.” Pepsi’s 12-ounce bottle, twice the size of a Coke, sold for the same nickel, which made it more popular among poorer people; according to Capparell, Pepsi had “survived the Depression by appealing to Negro consumers.”

Again, this is way too complicated. Always remember the acronym "KISS". (Keep it simple, stupid.) That applies to good writing, (in terms of organization as well as word choice), and often to life, as well.

That being said, if you can read the whole review, the book sounds very interesting. We know about Brown v. Board of Ed., and the Montgomery bus boycott, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This tells about a big part played behind the scenes by a major corporation -- a story of which I was unaware. This book is going on my personal summer reading list.