purposes, heating water, and things like that - and carefully placed so that they were right in the reddest part of the fire. For a day the temperature would be maintained and then the fire would be permitted to die out. When it was cold the clay bundles would be broken open, the waste clay thrown away, and the carbonised willow sticks (charcoal) would now be ready for the highest use which is the dissemination of true knowledge.

...The carbon would be taken and very, very carefully examined for anything that was not black carbon.#

The insertion of material about Tibet's marine past is an example of the rambling style. It is entirely irrelevant to the description of the production of "scribble sticks". (Incidentally, there is good geological evidence that several million years ago, long before human beings appeared on earth, the Himalayan area was a sea bed. This is because according to the geological hypothesis of Plate Tectonics the Indian subcontinent has moved into Asia and caused the mountains to grow at the join.) Hoskins gives no supporting evidence about an "ancient race". Nor does he indicate why he has mentioned them at this point. He does not for example say that they invented "scribble sticks".

This insertion indicates that his main intention is to fill paper. His business was selling books rather than giving information. The description of the process itself is unnecessarily verbose. He is in fact describing a simple process of making charcoal which requires no magical knowledge. Super class and so on is the language of advertising, perhaps of airline seats; a straightforward description would need no more than first, second and third grades. Sometime between four to six months is an inelegant expression which would better be replaced by After about five months. These phrases are a sign that Hoskin is not an educated writer.

Further evidence of waffle is in the repetition: But now the scribble sticks were made in exactly the same way as they had been made previously. The good writer would have cut out this sentence as unnecessary.

The experienced reader finds it very difficult to read Rampa because of the inelegant expressions and lack of logical structure in the writing. You should note the use of the words special and very in this extract. They add nothing to the meaning and could be omitted without losing anything. The book reads as though Hoskins were sitting back with his eyes half-closed speaking into a tape recorder for a secretary to type. That is, it looks like a book spoken rather than written. As many popular writers use this method, it would not be unusual if the book was written in this way. It is not as good a method as sitting at a typewriter or computer keyboard, because the writer would then have to consider his readers and would be able to revise what he has written - something all good writers do. Bad writers often boast that they write things once and then do not look at it. Barbara Cartland is another example.

Good writers go through their work word by word and cut out any word or sentence which is not pulling its weight.

People who believe in "Rampa" might argue that the poor English is a sign of a foreigner failing to learn English properly. However, the badness of the writing is not the kind that foreigners usually show. On the contrary, it is typical of the uneducated native-speaker.