Reading and Writing in a Digital Age

“Still, we have become a society fearful of revealing who we are. The institutions that seek our support by sending us their brochures sound remarkably alike, though surely all of them– hospitals, schools, libraries, museums, zoos- were founded and are still sustained by men and women with different dreams and visions. Where are these people? It’s hard to glimpse them among all the impersonal passive sentences that say ‘initiatives were undertaken’ and ‘priorities have been identified.’” (My bolding. “On Writing Well”, Page 21)

This piece of advice from Zinsser, urging people to write personally, truly resonated with me. When I started looking into colleges in 11th grade, I asked for advice as to where to go. The responses? “Pick the college that feels right for you.” “Look for your best fit.” “Aim high and don’t settle.” While all “nice” advice, none of these sentences meant anything.

This issue was compounded by the media sent to me by various colleges. The sheer quantity of information I received on a regular basis via email, snail mail, and my high school’s college guidance department was overwhelming in itself. However, even when I could force myself to shovel away a little from this blizzard, I never encountered anything worth reading. Statistics and facts that I could easily look up on my own and general statements that could apply to dozens of other colleges were all that these brochures ever contained. There was never anything “human” to them.

And then I got the first piece of useful advice: “Why don’t you visit a bunch of colleges and just see which ones you like?” This didn’t come from my college guidance counselor– the closest thing I got from her was “Visit because they keep track of it and it may help your application blahblahblah…” It came from my mother: a 4th grade teacher.

Writing with humanity is essential. Without it, all writing falls flat.

I cannot express enough how much I enjoy reading On Writing Well. It’s simple and genuine. I rarely lose attention when reading it. As much as I value all of his advices I have read so far, I have found this comment particularly interesting.

“Never say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation.” (Zinsser, 26)

Having read the full chapter, I understand he was stressing the importance of “be[ing] yourself when you write” (25) and I also agree that good writing comes from the heart rather than from being pretentious or too ornate. However, I personally find this advice tricky, especially given my situation of having acquired English as a second language.

From what I heard, a person can write half the ability of how much one can understand from reading and one can speak half the ability of how proficiently one can write. Although, I cannot guarantee the  validity of this argument but the point still stands, there exists some gap between a person’s ability  to speak as much he/she can read, write or listen.

Sometimes I feel like having two separate voices: one that speaks from inside, one that literally comes out of my mouth. When I write, I do not stumble over my words as much as I do when I speak. My choice of words becomes broad and sentence structure more varied. On the other hand, for those whose language ability has not been settled, it is difficult to have a certain voice. Their speaking is characterized by robot like sentences and awkward phrases combined with unnecessarily formal diction, using words that would normally be used in an essay or an article such as nevertheless or thus. Given this situation, I’d rather choose the former than the latter.

Then again, I guess Zinsser’s point on authenticity and conciseness still holds for truth is what really connects everyone.

“Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it’s not a question of gimmicks to “personalize” the author. It’s a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.”  (Zinsser, pg. 5) I would have to say that most of my previous teachers in English and even History have only acknowledged my writing as good when they have read and critiqued it all rather than just skim through it and give me a passing grade because the writing followed the specified formula.  The English language is many, varied, and ever changing. Good writing has to contain many variations in the English language and style in order to bring out the true power and emphasis of the point(s) or message(s) presented in the writing. Sticking to one format or style will not keep the reader entertained or captivated for long. The last thing that the author would want to do is repel his / her audience. To this end, the author will pull out any and all of his tricks (literary techniques and devices) from his bag of seemingly infinite space (the vast and boundless English language).

“Clear thinking becomes clear writing…” (8)

Reading that fragment stopped me dead in my mental tracks. It was a profound statement. The simplicity of it astounded me. I understand that when I can not clarify what I mean to myself, I definitely can not make it clear to others through any form of communication, let alone written text. Written words not only lack descriptive tone that voice carries, but it also gives a great deal of interpretive privilege to the reader. I find this advice to be incredibly good advice. It is the reason why all throughout high school, teachers required outlines before essays were drafted. It is the reason why people who tend to get easily confused do so poorly when conveying ideas by means of writing. When I go off on tangents mentally, I can assume that my sentences would be run ons. I think Zinsser makes a wonderful point, reminding us that we must think thoroughly before putting any words on paper.

“There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it.” Page 19

I remember WAY back in the day when I was a super cool senior beating up freshmen and stealing their lunch…I had to start the grueling process of college applications. In a sense, I was strolling down the style store picking up different ‘styles,’ trying them on, and realizing that they just didn’t fit. I went through the ‘let me sound like a pretentious asshole and throw in every SAT word I know in my essay because I can’ phase. I went through the ‘let me try and seem dramatic by writing one word paragraphs and hope the reader knows what in the world I’m trying to say,’ phase and many more of the like. My English teacher was more than a little confused. “Jacky this isn’t you,” he said time and time again. And then, naturally, I’d throw a fit. “BUT I HAVE TO BE IMPRESSIVE MR. SHEEHAN THEY HAVE TO LOVE ME,” I’d scream at poor old Jimmy Sheehan. “Be yourself Jack, they’ll love you.” So obviously I ignored what he was saying because obviously I know best and Mr. Sheehan who had been an English teacher for 36 years and read through hundreds of thousands of college applications had no idea what he was talking about…And this just turned into an never ending cycle of frustration and crumpled up rough drafts sitting at the bottom of my trash bin. Until one day, I had to write one of those dreaded 40 minute in class prompts that made me want to jump out the window. I found a topic that interested me, something that I felt passionate for, and you all probably know by now, I got very angry. (With the prompt that I was arguing against) I scribbled away and didn’t think of how Mr. Sheehan would feel about my strong opinions and literally speaking ‘let it all out.’ And that was the first time I didn’t stroll down the style store, try one on, and hope it would work. This was my style. It was an angry Jacky arguing for whatever it was that was pissing me off at the time and it marked the start of my own personal style of writing. In fact, I haven’t tried on any other styles since. Finally Mr. Sheehan stopped bugging me and after months of unsuccessful attempts, I was able to get the damn college essays written. As soon, as I stripped away all those silly layers of nonsense and said exactly what I wanted to say, my writing became so much better. “When I read your papers, I feel like you’re sitting in the third seat of the first row yelling at me and it’s great,” Mr. Sheehan said. Of course you have to be yourself when you’re writing. It is the corniest phrase in the world but it’s absolutely true. My style won’t fit Sally Smith because she’s a really happy girl that frolics through fields of sunflowers and talks as though she read the dictionary for breakfast. She’s not trying to sound like that, it’s just the way she is, and that translates into how she writes and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s what make’s every author’s pieces so unique. Their voice and pizazz and style shine through and if they are “putting on airs,” we the readers WILL notice and obviously excommunicate them from the writing community and hope they get kicked into a den of lions. Basically, this is the best advice any writer, or person in general can be given. Not every writing style will appeal to every audience just as every personality won’t appeal to every person you meet. Just like readers don’t want to see writers trying on styles from style stores that don’t exist, I don’t want to meet someone trying on a different personality to make him or herself likeable.

Zinsser’s piece of advice on “clutter,” really struck a chord in me. How many of us try to sound sophisticated when we try to write? How many of us are guilty of using helplines such as thesaurus.com, or dictionaries to spruce up our writing?  How many of us look at the writing we produced and realize that there are too many superfluous words present? I strongly agree with Zinsser’s advice on writing without clutter, specifically what he says on page 15. In the top paragraph of the page, he illustrates everyday words that to the writer, seem necessary in order to prove his/her credibility; using “sophisticated wording” to replace the mundane words. If we take a step back and really focus on what we’re writing and what point we are striving to make, the writing process should be a breeze according to Zinsser; it should flow and not seem like a struggle to produce words on a paper.

A lesson I most definitely am taking from Zinsser’s writing is to be myself and let my writing flow. It is far more important for my writing to be a work of my own, than for me to pretend to be an older, more professional sounding version of myself.

“Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away.” (16)

I think this is great advice because it makes for much clearer writing. Clutter confuses a reader with unnecessary words and repeated ideas which makes writing boring. It isn’t original and lacks developed ideas because the same ones are repeated over and over again. Clutter in writing is just like clutter in someones home; it looks disorganized and should be cleaned up.

I’ve heard this advice multiple times before from my dad and teachers so it really hits home for me. For me, my clutter was “fluff” writing. I would rewrite an idea and try to make it sound better than it actually was, but really it would just make the paragraph look longer. I can see the brackets that Zinsser writes about because those were the same brackets on my writing time and time again. Fluff was my way of reaching the page goal because I couldn’t develop and analyze my ideas well. Later in high school, I tried cutting down on fluff and this resulted in less brackets and clearer writing (though I’m sure there still is fluff). Throwing away repeated ideas allowed me the room to develop them more and led to higher grades on essays.  If I didn’t follow this advice, my essays and papers would still be filled with brackets and each paragraph would have one idea repeated with no evidence. This advice really changed my writing and I think it is extremely important to follow.

“Trying to add style is like adding a toupee. At first glance the formerly bald man looks young and even handsome. But at second glance – and with a toupee there’s always a second glance – he doesn’t look quite right. The problem is not that he doesn’t look well groomed; he does, and we can only admire the wigmaker’s skill. The point is that he doesn’t look like himself,” (19).

Something that I always found important in writing was to make sure it was your writing. That is, you can look back at past papers and actually see the words or sentences that have become a part of your writing self. This probably explains my distain for writing exams where the difference between “my writing” and “preferred writing” can mean either passing or failing.

The fact that I insisted on making my writing retain my own voice and style seems simple enough, but before I could reach that point I had to figure out exactly who I was, and how I could show it through my writing. Lo and behold, I embarked on the typical journey of trying to find myself in my writing, often resorting to imitation of the style of whatever book I was currently reading, or taking a sentence that I had written and using a thesaurus on every single word to create a “super sentence,” that even I couldn’t tell what the real meaning was anymore.

You’d think there’d be some huge revelation here about how I eventually found my own style, but the truth is that I still do those things, though often it’s only as an attempt to reinvent my style. Call it my Madonna-complex.

Zinsser’s comparison between “fake style” and a toupee made me re-realize just how important it is to retain your own style. After all, everyone knows it’s a toupee, don’t try to deny it.

“Clear thinking becomes clear writing…” (Zinsser, p.8)

I think this piece of advice is good. It gets straight to the point and reveals something that many want to express but cannot because there is too much clutter in the brain. Some may think that Zinsser is stating the obvious but, without him pointing it out, would anyone have thought of this themselves? I find this piece of advice very helpful because I often have a hard time organizing my thoughts and then have an even harder time getting them to look right on paper.

I find that when I write outlines of my thoughts, it becomes much easier to write clearly and effectively. Organizing thoughts does not mean that they have to be organized in the head though, and I am not walking away with that in mind. For example, whenever I try to organize my thoughts in my head, things become even more confusing and my writing becomes more unclear. When I write them out however, I can easily see a way to piece them together in a coherent way. Thoughts are not tangible, and are hard to grasp and keep in line, so writing them out and organizing them clearly, will lead to clear writing.