A style of text that is, from the point of view of the reader, "just one damn thing after another."
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After I accepted a half-time gig as technical editor for *STQE*, later *Better Software*, I was coached (briefly) by an experienced editor of nonfiction magazine articles. One thing he told me was to avoid what he called "boxcar articles."
A boxcar article is one in which topics feel like they're arranged linearly, with as little connection between one and the next as a boxcar has with the next boxcar. Such articles are boring to read. They provide the engagement of a young child telling a story: "and this happened, and then this happened, and..."
As an editor (what would be called a shepherd in the patterns community), I helped authors (mostly novice) turn boxcar articles into articles with some feeling of momentum. They were, except for 3 instances over 7 (?) years, happy with me.
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