I love being a college professor—except for one thing.
Student papers.
Reading assignments is the worst part of the job.
Like many people, college students are obsessed with size. The student fallacy is simple: longer must be better. If a paper has more words, surely it deserves a higher grade.
So they keep writing.
And writing.
And writing.
They chase an imaginary word count and an equally imaginary A.
One of my colleagues got so tired of the fluff that he created a rubber stamp labeled “BS.” The stamps even come in different sizes depending on the amount of unnecessary padding.
Unfortunately, students often treat the stamps like badges of honor instead of editorial feedback.
While embellishment can improve some forms of writing, it has the opposite effect in humor.
Too many words quickly smother funny.
A joke isn’t a short story.
It’s more like a micro-story, told in the fewest words possible.
Novice writers often overload jokes with unnecessary setup and explanation. Professional comedians do the opposite—they obsessively prune their jokes, especially the punchline.
Every extra word weakens the laugh.
Consider this classic joke from Mitch Hedberg:
“I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.”
That joke works because nothing is wasted. Every word pulls its weight.
When drafting humor, your first version can be as long as you need.
But when editing, become ruthless.
Cut unnecessary phrases. Remove extra adjectives. Trim anything that slows the reader on the way to the punchline.
Because in comedy, brevity often equals hilarity.
There’s a time and place for fluffing.
Just not when writing funny.
A great joke may be BS…
…but it won’t contain BS.
And that ain’t BS.
