Corner reader Jeff Stockwell of Stockwell Design writes: “Working in advertising I find most of the copy that adorns web sites is either written by designers or clients. These people for the most part are not writers. I would guess that a professional writer came nowhere near the copy for that web site. And students can’t write because unless they are being taught by a writer, they’re not learning the correct skills. Being able to diagram a sentence qualifies one to be an English teacher, but not a writer.

“A woman I know is a professor of English (and writing, I think) somewhere in Texas. When I used to ask her to write newsletter articles for me, I just wanted to kill myself they were so incomprehensible. She used to crow about winning writing awards.”