ON WRITING WELL

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As a writing tutor, I frequently hear confessions. In a whispered tone I’m told, “To tell you the truth, I really don’t like to write. I just like science and math.” The confessor breathes a sigh of relief and looks to me for absolution. Here’s why I can’t grant it.

First, it’s in your self-interest to write well. It’s the skill every employer demands. Almost every job description lists good communication skills. Even in the job search process, you have to write a resume and a cover letter. Most of you realize that no one will take you seriously if you submit ineptly crafted employment messages.

Also after you land a job, you are going to have to write. According to David Shipley and Will Schwalbe in Send (2007), office workers in the U.S. spend at least 25 percent of the day writing emails, and this is just one form of written communication. Add in the time spent writing letters, reports, instant messages, and more, and it’s easy to see that most people write a lot at work.

Second, writing shows how you think. And you want to show you think logically. Sometimes, it can even show you how you think. How many times have you lamented, “I know what I want to say, but I’m not sure how to write it”? The process of writing–outline, draft, rewrite, revise, edit, and proofread–is a process of discovery. As a writer you build a logical structure as you construct your sentences and paragraphs. By looking for patterns, you start chunking similar ideas and begin rearranging and seeing connections that you might not have been aware of before you put it to print. In other words, writing helps you know what you think. Furthermore, writing while you conduct your research is a significant aspect of observational science.

I like what the successful novelist Stephen King says writing is: telepathy. In his book, On Writing (2001), he describes his approach to writing. His job as a writer is to send you, his reader, the same mental picture he has in his own head. In other words, the picture is no longer only in his mind, but because of his selection of words, he has “sent” it to you, and it’s in your mind too. In this way, writing is one way we share what our brains are cooking up. Once we share our observations, we are participating in a collective effort to describe our universe. Discourse and peer review strengthen the logical structure of our observations and help develop awareness of new patterns and discoveries. In this way, writing allows us to connect to people, to teach us what it means to see from other perspectives, and to record our vision for those who come after us. Writing is our thinking translated into physical form.

Third, writing helps pay the bills. Funding comes to those who write well. In Endurance (1931), F.A. Worsley, the ship’s commander tells the story of Sir Ernest Shackelton’s 1914-1916 expedition to the Antarctic: “What he concentrated upon with the closest and most intelligent perception was the sea in all its countless forms, the snow, the ice, the currents and the truly appalling winds of those latitudes, far below the Roaring Forties of evil reputation” (xvii). Worsley painstakingly recorded the events of the discovery to kindle curiosity in exploration; he recognized that without public interest in the expedition there would be no future funding. Worsley understood the connection between writing well and money.

The same is true today. Discoveries are expensive. Ask any scientist about the need for funding, and you will hear how research is costly, and without money, labs are quiet and unproductive. Writing research grants and proposals well brings in money. In addition, communicating the results to a diverse audience of journalists, policy-makers, and the public helps direct attention and resources to your laboratory.

Your careers and your pocketbooks are dependent on your ability to communicate. Paying attention to key writing principles will help you become a better writer. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post information on these key writing principles. Come in and ask me how you can incorporate them into your writing. I have appointments available throughout the next two weeks.

Now, for the absolution…go in peace and serve your reader by writing well. Praise be to good prose!

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