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I absolutely agree with Elza Tiner that it is vital for medieval scholars to recognise the importance of the teaching of composition (or 'style') to our students. Everyone on this list should, of course, be concerned about 'bad writing'. And the examples given were, indeed, egregiously bad. I never meant to imply otherwise. But while I did mean to question--mildly--the _especial_ relevance of the mailing to a drama history list (I certainly accept its _general_ relevance to all of us who teach and write ), I was primarily concerned with the form of the critique. Debunking is a great thing, but this type of debunking tends to invite readers not merely to hold bad writing up to ridicule but to mock the intellectual arguments and endeavours of critical theory. If this is what is at stake, then the debunking doesn't constitute a proper intellectual argument: it simply confirms prejudices. I don't want to enter here into a long defence of critical theory, but I do want to uphold its importance for certain scholars and students within the field of medieval studies. Bad writing is another matter altogether, and I deplore it. Ruth Evans Cardiff University, Wales