A simple, smooth style is best for the press

SIR—It has always been a pleasure for me to read the New Vision. It is so heartening that a government paper can now tell off the President and the President does not harass anyone. My interest is also professional and intellectual. I request some of your celebrated columnists to continue giving us the best. I suggest to Mr. John nagenda in particular to change his writing style. This is because the gist of his message is usually blurred by the poetic prose style which seems to be his stock in trade. This style, however masterfully one may use language, gets into the way because it is a wrong genre for a newspaper. Besides, the writer inadvertently limits the number of his readers, however pithy his discourse may be.Reading Nagenda’s articles, one gets the feeling of driving on a road full of pot holes every few metres. Depressing the clutch and shifting gears every now and then is taxing indeed and, yes, irritating. When one reads Dr. Ian Clarke’s or Opiyo Oloya’s articles, for example, one realises how rewarding a smooth text can be. They write clear, simple and instantly communicating language. Whenever I read Nagenda’s articles, I am always reminded of the coursework texts my colleagues and I used to tackle at Strathclyde for purposes of linguistic and literary criticism. Such texts are suitable in academics but quite unsuitable and unnecessary in a newspaper. Dr. James KimbugweCoventry, UK