A while back, I published a post about a poll that asked the question: “Who writes better? Men or Women?”

What a hazardous, if not lethal, question.

The poll was produced by Grammarly.com, a proofreading software program for word processors such as Microsoft Word.

As you might expect, its conclusions sparked some interesting (read: heated & intense) discussions among writers of both genders.

Boy, did it ever.

I won’t keep you in suspense. The poll of some 3,000 men and women worldwide found that women are better writers than men by a margin of 59% to 41%.

Ahem. I am sure there are plenty of male colleagues who beg to differ. And I am sure there are plenty of female scribblers saying, “See, I told you so!”

So just how did Grammarly arrive at this staggering conclusion?

Women, the poll said, tend to be more descriptive in their writing and spend more time developing a greater variety of characters than men.

Perhaps as a result, women are generally regarded as superior writers, the survey concluded. Note the qualifiers in that sentence: “perhaps” and “generally.”

 On the other hand, male writers get to the point faster, and both sexes are more likely than not to write about people like themselves, the poll added.

OK, now let’s do a little parsing here.

First, let’s not forget that the poll was highly subjective, and I have no idea if the 3,000 men and women polled were split equally between the sexes.

That said, there were some interesting results.

For example, one question asked which sex is likely to spend more time developing characters and which is likely to get to the point faster.

The answer? 83 percent of the respondents said that women were likely to spend more time developing characters, and just 17 percent said they would get to the point faster.

As for men, 44 percent of respondents said that men would spend significant time developing character, and 56 percent said men would get to the point of the story faster.

Before continuing, I should explain just what Grammarly is. According to Superhuman Platform, Inc., which produces Grammarly, the software program uses elite natural language processing technology to check writing for more than 250 types of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. It delivers a passive learning experience that identifies writing patterns and tone and sends users personal recommendations to help them understand their most common mistakes and opportunities to develop their writing skills.

Now, back to the poll. Another question asked if men are more likely to write about people (using pronouns such as “she,” “me,” “hers,” or “we”) or things (using determiners such as “the,” “a,” “some,” or “more”).

Fifty-six percent said men were more likely to write about people, and 44 percent said they were more likely to write about things.

On the other hand, 68 percent said women were more likely to write about people, and just 32 percent said they were more likely to write about things.

I am not sure what that means. I have never seen a successful novel that focuses entirely on “people” or entirely on “things.”  I would assume that any good story would give sufficient attention to both.

The results of one question seemed to run counter to what I would regard as crisp and clear writing. That had to do with sentence length.

The question asked which, men or women, were more likely to write long, descriptive sentences or simple, straightforward sentences.

The answer: 34 percent of men wrote long sentences, and 66 percent wrote short sentences. For women, the percentages were quite different. The poll revealed that 76 percent of women wrote long, descriptive sentences while just 24 percent wrote short, snappy sentences.

Once again, I am not sure why those results indicate that women are superior writers. I prefer, like Ernest Hemingway, to write shorter, crisper sentences–though if William Faulkner were queried, I am sure he would say just the opposite.

Is the Grammarly poll conclusive? Hardly. But I am sure it will make for some interesting conversation at book fairs, writing conferences, and college literature classes.

Because writing quality is completely subjective, major polling organizations (like Gallup or Pew) tend to shy away from asking the public to judge general writing ability by gender.

However, there have been several fascinating data-driven studies, linguistic analyses, and reports from the publishing industry over the last few years that approach the question from different angles. Instead of measuring subjective “goodness,” they look at readership, editing accuracy, and vocabulary.

Since I posted about the Grammarly poll, the question of which gender is the better wordsmith has persisted and entered academia and other literary

realms, in an attempt to arrive at more scientific, data-driven conclusions about the differences between male and female scriveners.

For example, at England’s Cambridge University, rather than a public opinion poll, linguists conducted a massive study analyzing written English spanning millions of words to examine structural proficiency and error rates between men and women.

The study found that women consistently demonstrated a slight edge in grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity in formal writing.

Researchers noted that female writers, on average, adhered more strictly to standard grammatical conventions and used a wider, more varied range of descriptive adjectives and adverbs. Male writers, by contrast, were found to use more direct, noun-heavy phrasing and shorter sentence structures—echoing the exact stylistic differences found in the Grammarly poll.

Then there are the Goodreads Reading & Rating Behavior Studies, in which data scientists and industry analysts regularly crunch the numbers on Goodreads (the world’s largest book review and recommendation platform) to see how the public subjectively rates male vs. female authors.

 

 

The conclusions show a massive bias in how we read and rate the sexes.

Women are rated higher, but men largely read only men. For some reason, that doesn’t surprise me.

On average, books written by women receive slightly higher average star ratings from readers than books written by men across several mainstream genres, including historical fiction, mystery, and general contemporary literature.

The data reveal that while female readers are perfectly happy to read and highly rate books by both men and women, male readers overwhelmingly choose books written by men (by an estimated margin of nearly 80% to 20%). Therefore, women’s higher “scores” are largely driven by a more gender-diverse readership.

In the decade since Grammarly’s poll, several major independent editing platforms and self-publishing distribution hubs (like Reedsy and Smashwords) have analyzed the raw manuscripts submitted by thousands of authors before they hit the market.

The Conclusion: Men and women make different types of mistakes, but the volume is nearly identical.

Data from professional editors show that manuscripts written by men are more frequently flagged for developmental edits (e.g., missing plot logic, rushed character development, or unnatural dialogue).

Manuscripts written by women are more frequently flagged for copy-editing fixes (overwriting, repetitive descriptors, or sentences that run too long).

Ultimately, the modern consensus among literary analysts aligns with what I suspected: it is an entirely subjective exercise. ‘

While public perception and reader ratings currently give women a slight edge in character depth and descriptive prose, men are often praised for pacing and narrative drive.

The “better” writer usually just comes down to what a specific reader values more—the vivid scenery and deep psychology of a William Faulkner or Thomas Wolfe, or the crisp, driving, minimalist economy of an Ernest Hemingway or Elmore Leonard.

Personally, when it comes to fiction, I don’t care if the author is a man or a woman. If the characters are authentic and compelling, the pacing is crisp and logical, and the story is well organized, plausible, and convincing, I will read a book from cover to cover.

I especially like what the late Elmore Leonard once said about writing:

“At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.”

And this succinct bit of advice from Leonard: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

Amen, brother, and sister.

–30–

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to ForeignCorrespondent and tell your friends to subscribe. “It’s free—what a deal!” If you’ve received this from a friend and would like to be added to our distribution list for future blog posts, simply enter your email in the notifications box to sign up:

 https://ronaldyatesbooks.com/category/foreign-correspondent.

You can also find my commentaries on Substack at https://ronyates.substack.com/ and the American Free News Network at https://afnn.us.

Please feel free to comment: We genuinely love hearing from you!