The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers -- Part 1

From Gerald Grow: Here is the summary table from my article, "The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers."

Look this over and see if you recognize your writing in it.

Realize that many of these are the problems of all writers who have problems, but each problem here has been derived from a theory of how visual thinkers think.

That means: While you may have the same writing problem as someone else, yours may derive from a different cause, and may need a different method for improving it.

I argue in the article that many people arrive at these writing problems by being visual thinkers of a certain kind.

The table is divided here into several entries.

Because they think in pictures, visual thinkers may have trouble finding names for things. And when they do find names, they sometimes use names that are not shared by others.

Here are some writing problems visual thinkers can have as a result of thinking of things as pictures that do not have names.

Table 1. The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers

1. Naming imprecise or lacking -- "The doohickey bollusked up my thingamajig."
Broad, vague nouns and adjectives.

2. Words as labels for unseen pictures, labels for complex but unexplained thoughts. Effort to label large visual wholes at once, without analyzing them into their parts. Each verbal element seems to refer to more than it says; words have multiple or cryptic, rather than specific, meanings.

3. General fuzziness of language -- Words imprecise. Connections unclear. Syntax slippery. Words don't seem real to the writer. Has a "You know what I
mean" quality.

4. Words used in a private and eccentric manner, like decor. When asked, writer might reply, "That's just what I use the word to mean."



From "The Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers," © 1994, 1996 by Gerald Grow, Florida A&M University -- www.longleaf.net/ggrow

This table is an expansion of one that appeared in Visible Language, 28.2, Spring 1994.