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Article 1 "Teachers, Students, and Writer's Intuition"
Article 2 "Writing in the Digital Age"
Teachers, Students, and Writer's Intuition
by Kevin Ryan, Ph.D.
reprinted from inside english
"How many paragraphs should my essay be?"
"Should I write on the first topic or the second?"
"Should I use the word refuge or sanctuary?"
The answer to these and all such student questions should be: "Use your writer's intuition--and then you tell me."
What is writer's intuition? It is that instinct that just told me to start a new paragraph here, and to start it with a question, because it would be more effective. It would "work." There would be nothing incorrect about making both of these one long paragraph: it is just that two are better in this case. A writer's intuition is a developed instinct for what is "correct" or "works" in each writing assignment. It is the secret knowledge that students think the teacher is holding back: "Last time you told me not to do this, now you say it's okay. Why don't you just tell me how to do it so it will be correct all the time?"
Because each composition is different. Tone, word choice, point of view, emphasis, the introduction, the conclusion, and much more change with each assignment. There are no rules that can be slavishly followed each time in order to produce a good essay. There are many rules to help a student write a "safe" essay, but while his writing is correct it will also be lifeless and formulaic-the five-paragraph essay. I am not saying the teacher should emulate Joyce and teach the unorthodox, but once the student enters college, it is about time he learns how writers really work, how compositions are actually created.
Writer's intuition is something that is learned and not taught. The teacher can only act as an editor for the student. All the restrictions the beginning college writer brings with him from high school (never write fragments, never start sentences with a coordinating conjunction, never write one-word sentences nor one-sentence paragraphs) should be lifted so he can follow his instincts, though rudimentary, to see how experienced writers work, to see there is nothing mystical about the process: it is trial and error for the least and the most experienced writers. When used properly, what is wrong with a one-word sentence? Nothing.
And teachers often speak in the classroom of the one-sentence paragraph as if it were an inviolable rule that no writer should break, but if it is written correctly and reads smoothly so the reader can follow it without getting tangled in an undergrowth of non-sequiturs and dangling modifiers, what difference does it make as long as it covers one complete idea?
The difficult part is learning how to tell what is correct. The teacher, as editor, is the expert who should look at a student's draft and "see" where he is heading in his essay and then give suggestions that will work for that particular essay. Let them write one-word sentences. If it works, tell them. If not, show them why and let them rewrite it. When someone asks how many paragraphs he must write for the next assignment, tell him to go home and write a complete rough draft of the essay and show it to you the next class date. He will solve the problem himself while writing, and if not, well, you're the editor. At every chance, point out to the student when he is using his writer's intuition and when you are using yours.
The process will be very difficult in the beginning. The teacher will have no doctrine to support him and instead of saying, "You should do it this way because the rule says never _," he will find himself saying things like, "It sounds better this way," or "It seems to me the word refuge fits better in this case. What do you think?" At first, the teacher will feel insecure in his role as writing authority because he knows the students expect rules, and he may sense that they are thinking, "How come this guy doesn't know how to write?" And the students will find writer's intuition a difficult idea to comprehend because they have been taught since first grade that you learn to write by following certain rules. However, after a few classes, they will begin to understand. And it is important they do, for writer's intuition is the key to writing what is "correct" all the time. After all, how would you explain to a beginning writer Joyce's 1,500-word sentence that ends Ulysses? And once a writer leaves your class and begins reading experienced writers who use fragments and break all the rules, won't he be more confused?
All the rules that beginning writers learn in most writing classes are based on writer's intuition anyway. They are nothing more than what works best most of the time in good compositions: most good essays have the theme stated in the first paragraph, most good essays do not have one-word sentences, most good essays never use etc., and etc. The whole problem is that because these are presented as dogma rather than as flexible guidelines, students have come to think that there are specific rules governing all essays, that the teacher has the answer to how to write a perfect essay each time, and that he is just teasing the student with sadistic Socratic questioning in a morbid attempt to get him to discover for himself the secret way to write a good composition. It is time the teachers let them in on the secret.
If we do not start to develop their writer's intuition in Freshman Composition (probably the last class on writing they will have), we would be like witch doctors who, instead of telling the natives that their lower back pain will go away if they exercise and then showing them the exercises, have them come to us weekly and make them go through arcane and cabalistic movements which ease their pain. They leave thinking how smart we are and how mysterious the process is and how they would never be able to do that on their own. We're not going to be around for help after the semester ends.
They must realize that they have the capacity to tell themselves what is correct in their writing, that it is something they must develop through much practice. It will take much longer than seventeen weeks to develop, but if they are constantly being shown examples of their writer's intuition throughout the semester, they will at least be aware of how it functions and will begin to develop it. When they are at home wondering how to approach an essay, they will at least know that there is more than one correct way to write it and that the teacher does not have one correct solution in mind. The only difference between the student as writer and the teacher as writer is in the amount of writing experience each has had. There is nothing mysterious about the process at all.
Grammar, spelling, punctuation and never-do-this and always-do-that rules are very teachable and easy to grasp, but do not get at the heart of how to write an essay. It is an extremely personal craft that primarily follows only the one "rule" Aristotle pointed out: all compositions must have a beginning, middle, and end. The rest is up to the individual and his writer's intuition.
No matter how digital the business world becomes, it will always run on a highly prized, pre-Computer Age skill: writing. Speech-recognition software? That only replaces the act of writing. You still have to do the thinking which is what writing is all about.
The faster our PCs, PDAs, and Internet phones become, the faster we have to think and write on the job. That's the defining characteristic of writing in the e-Age. Speed. When you return from a week's vacation, you can't take another week to respond to the 300 e-mails sitting in your virtual in-box. When financial data from 10 branch offices arrives in milliseconds via T1 lines, your boss expects the accounting report to appear equally fast. You've got little or no time to gather your thoughts and then prewrite, write, and rewrite drafts until they're perfect.
What's a business writer to do? Write faster and smarter by focusing on clearly conveying your message and using your writer's intuition as a guide.
Writing Is Like Shooting Hoops
A good friend of mine once attended a weeklong professional basketball camp. He set a goal to be the number one scorer and rebounder at the end of the week. Two days into camp, it was clear he'd never make it-too much bumping and grinding going on beneath the hoop. Coach took him aside and said he was pressing too much, and that he should stop concentrating on scoring and rebounding and instead concentrate on simply being first underneath the basket each time down the court.
At the end of camp, he won the prize for top scorer and came in second in rebounding.
The problem was that my friend's original goal-scoring and rebounding-sounded simple, but it was really complex. To score in a crowd you have to master many skills (fancy dribbling, hook shots, crisp passing, shooting over a double team, etc.) and process a zillion choices every second.
But nothing is easier than scoring points when you're the only player under the basket. You simply have to practice two skills: wind sprints (so you can be first to the hoop) and lay-ups, the easiest shot in the game.
Focus on the Simple and Doable
What does this have to do with business writing? Too many writers do what my friend did. They concentrate on an overly complicated goal; they focus on dozens of writing rules while writing instead of focusing on the simple goal of clearly conveying their message. What follows is a disturbing example taken from a study that tracks the causes of writer's block in college students (who will soon be business writers). In his essay, “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans and the Stifling of Language,” Mike Rose, UCLA English Department, highlights the problems he discovered. Here's one:
“[While writing,] Sylvia has trouble deciding which of the many rules she possesses to use. She has multiple rules to invoke, multiple paths to follow, and that very complexity of choice virtually paralyzes her. [For example, she] puts tremendous weight on the crafting of her first paragraph. If it is good, she believes the rest of the essay will be good. Therefore, she will spend up to five hours on the initial paragraph. Clearly, this rule-or strength of it-blocks Sylvia's production.… [Writers like Sylvia] may well be stymied by possessing rigid or inappropriate rules, or inflexible or confused plans. Ironically enough, these are occasionally instilled by the composition teacher or gleaned from the writing textbook.”
It's Okay to Make Mistakes
Sylvia has the wrong focus. She concentrates too much on the rules governing the production of her message, instead of the message itself. If Sylvia were working for me, I would rather read a memo from her that clearly communicated her point (that sales were up 20% for the quarter, or she wanted this Friday off, or she needed a new PC) even though it had a weak introduction, a grammar error, or a typo or two.
Yes, it would be wonderful if every piece of business writing were error-free, but it isn't. That's the real world. And in the real world, businesses run on clear communication. If a memo follows all the writing rules but leaves me confused as to what I'm supposed to do, I have to waste time requesting a follow-up clarification letter and start the process all over again. If it's an important and timely communiqué (“Stop George from signing the contract with our Asian vendor. They're going out of business tomorrow!”), and the reader can't make out the message, heads will roll.
Professional Secrets
A final comment on error-free writing: a dirty little secret about professional writing is that even the pros make mistakes. The difference is that they have editors and proofreaders to catch theirs. Even then, some errors slip through. Who hasn't experienced the unadulterated joy of finding a typo in a New York Times bestseller or Wall Street Journal article?
I'm not saying you should throw writing rules out the window. I am saying you should stop focusing on them, and focus instead on the thoughts you're trying to communicate. No matter what you do, writing errors are bound to pop up. The solution is to concentrate on the positive, the simple, the doable. In the mixed parlance of Stephen R. Covey and Edward Deming, put first things first: work on constantly improving the quality of your message, not zero defects in your grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Many business writers will be surprised to discover that by shifting their focus to the message instead of writing rules, they will actually make fewer mistakes.
Writer's Intuition Defined
Writer's intuition is an instinct, developed after years of writing and reading, that tells a writer what is clear and concise in every writing situation. It's a learned skill that anyone can master and is the defining characteristic that separates the experienced from the inexperienced writer.
Here's the problem with writing rules and how your writer's intuition can save you. “Always begin a sentence with a capital letter” is an easy rule to follow and one that most of us have little trouble with. But the rule “Avoid long sentences” is much trickier. How long is a long sentence, and how many long sentences are too many? No writing guide can answer these two questions. You must rely on your writer's intuition to tell you when a long sentence is appropriate and when it's not, because applying the rule is different in every writing situation.
Develop and Trust Your Own Voice
In the classic textbook on writing, The Elements of Style, the authors Strunk and White tell their readers to use active not passive voice. Yet the introduction to the book, written by White himself, is riddled with passive constructions. Why doesn't White follow his own advice? Because professional writers listen to their writer's intuition when composing, not the voice (which try as they might, many can't get out of their heads) of their sixth-grade English teacher. Business writers must learn to recognize, develop, and trust their writer's intuition in order to improve their communication skills.
Writing well in any age, industrial or digital, is one trait all successful business people have in common. By focusing on your message using your writer's intuition as a guide, you can communicate your way up the corporate ladder with speed and grace.
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