6.1.4: Digressions

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Bradley H. Dowden
California State University Sacramento

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Regarding digression, suppose you are writing a business letter to a supplier explaining how the five generators their company sent you were not the quality you had agreed to purchase. In the middle of this letter, you shouldn't take a weird turn to tell a story about how you were fascinated with generators when you were fourteen years old and how you took one apart and got your first electrical shock. That would be an unreasonable digression because it would be irrelevant. It doesn't speak to the issue even if your digression is interesting.

Digressions take you down some side road and away from the main road. Normally, a digression is a fault in any writing. The reader's mental response to a digression that doesn't give strong hints of its relevance is usually something like "Enough already; now let's get back on track and make some progress."

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

If you were going to remove the digression in the following business letter, what would you take out?

Dear Mr. Harris:

You recently wrote our company regarding a problem with the transistors we supplied to you for your FC-7D circuit boards. I am sure we can solve your problem.

Our quality control engineers do try to fill orders correctly. Not only do we use the familiar testing via the Z-bar procedure, but we also have added the Z-bar supplement procedure which is recommended by the American Association of Quality Control Engineers. Our quality control engineers are not new employees, and they have a great deal of experience in filling order such as yours. If you would like to learn more about our quality control procedures, please contact our Quality Control Engineer Office and ask for Jeremy Bohm at (919) 278-7384.

We were quite surprised to learn that your own checking of our FC-7D boards indicates there is a ten percent failure rate. We will be happy to refill your order at no expense to you. Today we have begun the procedure of sending you another 77,000 meeting the specifications as indicated in your purchase order #33-Dcl. Meanwhile, it would be helpful for us if you would return the remaining boards that we sent to you. We will pay shipping costs. Please feel free to call me at (919) 278-6424 if you have any further questions.

Very truly yours,

Dwayne W. Edwards

Assistant Manager

Answer: Jettison the second paragraph of the letter.

Let's summarize this section's points about structure. A piece of writing without structure is chaotic. Every piece of writing needs some sort of method of organization, even though different kinds of writing can use different methods. Write the piece first—get your meaning out onto the paper. Then go back and organize. When doing so, mentally consider how you are going to introduce the topic. What way will you organize the main body? How do you intend to end your piece? Can the reader always see the road you are on? Will making a particular point just cause a detour from the main road?