The Devil's Encyclopedia:   A

The ABC Style

The ABC Style is a style of persuasive writing known by multiple names. One could say that it is the prevalent style, except that most of the people practicing it don't know what it is, and by consequence, don't know the rules. The style is highly structural, and only applies to the body of the writing, excluding topic and conclusion sentences.

The body paragraphs in the ABC style should have everything between the topic and conclusion sentences for a paragraph (or a similar section of multiple paragraphs that acts as one subpoint) composed of loops of the same type of block. The block is an ordered combination of three elements, labeled A, B, and C. The meanings of these are as follows:
The theory involved in the ABC style of what will tend to create bad persuasive writing is omitting the C component, and what will tend to create awful persuasive writing is omitting both the B and C components. Naturally, the explanation is the easiest to forget, as it usually seems very obvious, possibly to the point at which including it seems insulting to the reader's intelligence. However, the practice of regularly providing the explanation acts as a check on the writer, such that he or she will not inadvertently provide secondary support that is a valid fact but does not validate the assertion. An example of a proper use of the ABC style, using one sentence for each element, is below.

Example of Good Use of the ABC Style:
The Devil's Encyclopedia is not intended as a completely serious reference. In the article for Conservapedia, The Devil's Encyclopedia uses a picture three monkeys at the computer to represent the Conservapedia writers. Since the fact that monkeys cannot write in American English (the language of the site) is so well-known that the writers of The Devil's Encyclopedia would know that it would not pass as fact, the inclusion must have been intended as a joke instead of a fact, which even by itself reduces The Devil's Encyclopedia's serious reference material from 100% to a lesser number.

Note that the ABC style does not have to be presented as one sentence for each of the three parts. One component can be broken into multiple sentences, multiple components can be combined as one sentence, and one assertion can even have multiple pieces of secondary support, each with an explanation. To use the structure properly, one must not be mindful to have blocks of three sentences, but instead to have blocks of what the components are. To demonstrate improper use of the structure, quotations will be taken from the standards in shoddy writing, Conservapedia and FOX News. (Note that FOX News statements delivered via audio are still usually written, before being read off a teleprompter.) Conservapedia keeps a page up criticizing Wikipedia entitled "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia," the first example in which will be used as a demonstration of improper ABC style usage. The entire list is not used, as the job here is to show the ABC style of writing, while the job of embarrassing Conservapedia belongs to its editors and contributors.

Example of Bad Use of the ABC Style:
Excerpt from Conservapedia: "Wikipedia uses guilt-by-association far worse than Joseph McCarthy ever did. Wikipedia smears numerous persons and organizations by giving the false impression that they are associated with the John Birch Society (JBS). Examples include:
    * pro-life Congressman Jerry Costello, merely because JBS gave him a favorable rating[1]"
The page then moves to different subjects from Jerry Costello, and does not return. Following the Costello link (fortunately, to a permanent version, as Wikipedia changes often), one extracts the following text as Conservapedia's referral:
"Costello is one of the more conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives. He has a pro-life voting record and has received favorable ratings from the American Conservative Union and the John Birch Society. He serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and also the Science Committee."

Where this writing fails is as the ABC style predicts, by omitting the C component. It has the assertion, which is that Wikipedia uses guilt-by-association and that the level is higher than Republican former Senator Joseph McCarthy. It then has its secondary support in the form of two sentences, the first being that it "smears" people (other people are included after the end of the excerpt) with relation to John Birch Society, and the second being that Jerry Costello was "smeared" even though John Birch Society simply gave him a favorable rating. The writing is missing the C component, and attempting to write one might have shown the writer that the secondary support is not related to the assertion, allowing him or her to change one of the two. The assertion is one of "guilt-by-association," and before even dealing in the rhetoric of including McCarthy's name, one must ask, "Guilty of what?" The only mention of John Birch Society in the text from the link is that it gave Costello a favorable rating, but Conservapedia stated that this was true. Conservapedia alludes to an association, but there is an association between John Birch Society and Jerry Costello, the association being that John Birch Society has provided a rating for Jerry Costello, which Conservapedia affirmed. If it rates all members of Congress, then they all have an association with John Birch Society regardless of what the rating is, albeit an unimportant association. The Wikipedia entry never alleges more meaningful types of association such as membership in John Birch Society, which is not a criminal action anyway. The only choice left is the assertion from the Wikipedia article for which the sentence related to John Birch Society provided secondary support. Thus, the crime is the high crime of being relatively conservative. While many would attest that this is quite the misdeed, it hardly seems like the intention of the self-proclaimed conservatives at Conservapedia. The missing C component would have to be something along the lines of, "Since being conservative is a stance so stupid that noting someone as conservative is creating more damaging allegations for the person than Joseph McCarthy getting entertainers blacklisted in their careers, Wikipedia has damaged Jerry Costello by the guilt-by-association of linking him with conservative viewpoints such as those friendly to John Birch Society." Had the conservative writer begun with this sentence, chances are good that he or she would have stopped and returned to fix the problem in the previous writing.

Example of Awful Use of the ABC Style:
Excerpt from "The O'Reilly Factor" Jon Stewart clip (Stewart is addressing O'Reilly regarding O'Reilly's statement about being on Al Qaeda's hit list): "But I don't know if you've seen the al Qaeda tapes. We're kind of all on the hit list."
Bill O'Reilly: "But you, Jon Stewart, are way, way down on that list. Right before Colbert but after Maher. Ridiculous? You make the call..." [end of segment]

The assertion is that Bill O'Reilly is high on the list of people Al Qaeda wants to kill, and that Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert are close to being the lowest Americans on the list, assuming all Americans are on it. Attempting to write the B and C components of the ABC looks something like, "I use my highly-rated pundit show to make constant statements about how Al Qaeda is really big and dangerous, and I'm so afraid of them attacking that I wet myself frequently. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert criticize me doing this using jokes. Since Al Qaeda is bothered most by the idea of Americans going on TV and giving them constant publicity about how they are the premier badasses of the world, they want to kill me right away. Since these comedians ridicule me and the ridicule has an outside chance of stopping me from stirring up fear of Al Qaeda by embarrassing me or reducing my audience, Al Qaeda doesn't mind them nearly as much as the average American." Of course, the idea of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda being afraid of fear-based publicity is ridiculous, since a terrorist group's immediate objective is to attain such publicity. Using the ABC style would have exposed a problem in the AB writing for a Conservapedia writer, who could have revisited the paragraph, but would have exposed a problem in the A-only style from O'Reilly, who could have revisited the entire attitude... but wouldn't have.

The ABC style, however, is simply a choice. The demonstrations above serve only to illustrate potential utility of the style. It is quite bulky, though, making it unsuitable for print mediums like newspapers where space is at a premium. Also, the length can overwhelm feeble brains, so when visiting the White House, one should replace the ABC style with a group of violent puppets.