In his epic poem "A Season in Hell," the surly French poet Arthur Rimbaud proposes that the Devil likes writing that lacks "descriptive" qualities. Rimbaud then makes a stand in favor of descriptive writing by offering "these hideous pages from [his] notes of the damned." The author would not go so far as to say that nondescriptive writing is evil…

Speaking plainly, says the writer: too many architecture students can't write. After hearing graduate architecture students defend their designs at a midterm studio review, the writer observed that, under questioning, several students became inarticulate and left participles or sentences dangling. While this may be understandable, the writer also…