Lars Larson (The Beacon)
By Lars Larson, Guest Commentary
Writing is weird. Our minds aren't structured in the mode of most writing we're asked to do. The mind wants to long and loaf, to connect and digress, to zag and zig in a fury of over-caffeinated neuro-pyrotechnics, followed by a nap. But most genres of writing (at least, those you'll encounter at college) insist on the orderly march of ideas, outfitted in the uniform of standard citation and grammar.
Moreover, few of us - if any - are confident writers. I take solace in the German novelist Thomas Mann's insistence that "A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Perhaps that unifying lack of confidence - that recognition that writing is hard - shows at least we know the high stakes involved.
Stephen King once compared writing to telepathy - writing as a kind of paranormal ability to telegraph complex ideas to other minds. Of course, there's nothing magic about it, for it's just a tool our ancestors built, of creating and decoding an system of arbitrary squiggles.
But O how long it takes each of us to work well within that system! Humans have been writing for at least 6,400 years, yet it still takes the first two decades of our lives to learn to control our messages (and to read with precision those of others).
No doubt you've heard the common adult complaint that young people are losing their ability to write. Take solace in the fact that it's an unoriginal claim. On one of the oldest pieces of writing - an ancient Sumerian clay tablet - we find a complaint about the poor quality of the latest generation of scribes. Likely, when you become supervisors and parents and senior citizens, you too will join this intergenerational chorus with its tired refrain about the abysmal writing of the young. But youth is not the main reason for poor communication.
A shift in technology is sometimes fingered as the problem. Apocalyptic warnings about the end of good writing erupted at such moments as when the Romans hooked us on the codex (bound book) 2,000 years ago, or when that hotshot Gutenberg sold us on movable type. Steve Jobs, inventor of the apple from which so many of us have chomped, is only the latest in the line of innovators of scribe platforms. But while these technologies (and genres and demands) shift over the centuries, forceful constructions of words resist the rub of time.
One other fact to consider is that your generation writes more than any other human generation that has come before. Much of this output is informal correspondence (emailing, texting, posting), but it still involves the brainwork of composition on a daily basis, at a scale that far outweighs past generations of scribblers.
All writing, regardless of the mode, is a way of participating in humanity's Great Conversation. And while the internet era has made it easier to participate than ever, the one essential way to be an effective participant is to nurture an awareness of audience. Attention to your readers' needs is a sure way of making your work stand out.
When I ask students in class what a text needs in order to hold their attention as readers in this distractable era, their answers show they're demanding: what they read has to be magnetic, informative, clear, authoritative. We need only recruit this kind of readerly discernment as a guide to our own writing.
So, to arrest a reader's attention, good writing is choosing one thing to say rather than a lot of little things. It's cultivating our common delight in surprise. It's finding something that takes us beyond the common sense we all already possess, and foregrounding that significance prominently. It's taking the time to be clear (as grammarian Patricia O'Conner puts it, "Turning out flashy, dense, complicated prose is a breeze; putting things down in simple terms that anyone can understand takes brainwork"). And it's making the time for revision - that act of generosity to ensure we're not just writing for ourselves but for our true reason-for-being: our reader.
An ideal place to start a conversation about your writing is in your professor's office hours. But let that conversation continue by visiting the trained assistants in the Writing Center (see the website for our schedule). Remember as well the single reference book that unifies our university, The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook, which should answer most of your technical questions.
Writing is weird, but as you know from daily composition, it's an inexpensive way of participating in the world. It gives us a chance to air our ideas clearly, to make up for where our mouth fails, and to make us momentarily feel, as one UP Writing Assistant says "that you've got the world figured out."
Steve Jobs left us with a challenge: "We are here to make a dent in the universe." Audience-centered writing is one way you can hit it with your best shot.
Lars Larson is an english professor and director of the Integrated Writing Program. He can be reached at larson@up.edu
b Visit up.edu/Irc/writing b Sign in or Register to reach the assistant schedules b click on an available spot (white box) next to an assistant's name, then fill out your class and instructor b fill out a session goals form through the email confirmation for your appointment prior to your visit b if all slots are full email the writing center: writing@up.edu b check out the writing center website for more resources
