How to fill your writing toolbox · 11:34pm Aug 28th, 2013
(Note: this blog post is kind of a Writing 101 level lecture, but some readers or advanced writers might find a few interesting things in it. Which is kind of what it's about, actually. )
When I was a teenager and curious about psychology, I spent a lot of time talking to my mother about it. She has a PhD, and at the time was teaching it at a college, so as I read about it I’d ask her about similarities and differences in schools of thought. At various points I would decide that one school of thought or another was the key to everything (as teenagers will,) but over time she introduced me to the toolbox idea.
Schools of thought in psychology, she believes, are like tools; there’s no one way of thinking that answers every question about how and why a person feels the way they do, and how to change that if they’re having trouble with it. But there are a handful of ways of thinking about behavior and life that it’s useful to understand, to know how they’re meant to be used, so that if understanding or treating a problem doesn’t work using one school of thought it may work with another. It’s useful for some people to become specialists in each of these, and it’s useful to see a specialist if that’s what you need, but it’s also important to know what tools are out there and to have an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, to avoid trying to use an Allen wrench to pry up a nail.
This is a way of thinking about things that I use frequently in lots of areas in my life; there are plenty of situations where it’s helpful to take a step back and see what the problem you’re facing really is, and what tools you know that might help solve it. And there are plenty of situations where I learn a way of doing something that isn’t useful right away, but I try to remember it for later because that tool might come in handy someday.
In any art, and writing is an art, learning to see the tools around you can be both useful and difficult. This is because with any creative work, the tools available are limited only by your imagination and your understanding of how to use them; want to use a cake recipe to try to structure a plot? Go for it! Want to try to express the rhythm of a song through a painting? Why not? These might not be successful, they might not be the right tools for the job, but you can try them and see if they work for you.
But, you might have noticed that a cake recipe isn’t something you’re going to learn in English class. And a visual art instructor probably isn’t going to talk about percussion in terms of painting. So, if you’re a writer and you want the coolest, most diverse, most interesting tool kit on the block, you’re going to want to keep your eyes open and be constantly asking yourself: can I use this somehow in writing?
There are some places I’ve found especially common or interesting for finding tools:
Written Fiction: Almost every writer will tell you that the first and most important thing you need to do to be a writer is read. This is why. The easiest way to find a new writing tool, and see how it can be used, is in other books.
I noticed that Terry Pratchett often has multiple POV characters he switches between as he changes scenes. Toward the climax of some of the books, the scenes will become shorter and the POV characters will switch more frequently, giving the climax a frantic pace as you jump from one place and character to the next. I haven’t really had the chance to use this yet, but it’s a cool trick.
When I read Pride and Prejudice, a number of important plot points are delivered to the POV character in the same long letter. Austen handles the reaction to this by starting the paragraph following the letter back at the beginning of the letter, and following the POV reaction as she reads what the readers just read. If I had thought of that in Wet Feathers, you better believe I would have written AJ’s reactions that way, but I didn’t have that tool at the time. Now I do.
So reading books or stories as a writer is how you learn to recognize different ways of writing things, and when you know they exist you can learn how to use them.
Books about writing/other writers: Believe it or not, other writers are looking for the same sorts of tool that you are, and trying to figure out how and when and where they work. Talking to other writers, and reading books they wrote about writing, is like taking a peek at their toolbox-- you might see something shiny that you know you need, or you might learn a new use for a tool that you already have.
I first read the MICE concept for story structure in Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card. Several times it’s come in handy when I haven’t been able to figure out what the focus of my story actually is and what direction I should take with it. I stumbled across the idea of “scene” and “sequel” in an old LiveJournal that Jim Butcher used to write, and recently Bad Horse came upon the source Butcher had learned it from, and posted about it in his blog.
I follow people here who like to talk about writing tools, like Bad Horse or bats or Bradel, and try to understand what they’re talking about and how those things are useful to me. I also try to post about the tools I’ve collected, in hopes that someone else finds them useful.
Other media: So far, this has been pretty obvious. Here’s where it gets fun. Prose writing isn’t the only way to tell a story, you can tell a story through film, music, poetry, or even pictures. So what kinds of tools are they using? Are there some ideas you could translate to prose?
Could you open your story with a “pan shot,” describing the scene in a general way and becoming more specific until you focus on the action? Could you use a story song or a symphony to build a plot around? Can you use a painting as reference to describe the play of light over a character or object to give a scene a similar feeling? Does an actor use certain body language to make himself seem to be in love, that you could translate to a character?
Now, of course, we’re getting into areas where you’ll have to experiment and figure out what works. Maybe that pan shot just slows down the opening too much, rather than building the suspense you’d hoped. Maybe you need to combine it with the play of light from the painting to get the right effect. But playing with these tools is how you get cool new effects that make your stories better.
Academia/General info: Stuff like history, biology, psychology, anthropology, religion… you can look at any of it as a writer. It’s obviously useful for world building and characterization, knowing how things have worked for different groups of people or animals, how natural phenomena work, or ways that people think about things can be twisted and translated into fiction.
But in terms of story structure, scene building, symbolism, tone, and themes, there’s just as much there. The “hero’s journey” came in part from Joseph Campbell studying the psychological theories of Carl Jung, along with world mythology. A writer could look at the different kinds of tension they feel in the ways that different kinds of animals hunt, and use those methods to structure tense scenes-- is this scene more “wandering close to the trap” or “keeping a watchful eye for an unseen predator.” Knowing the history of different wars, and how they were won and lost, could give you ideas for ways your main character could win or lose their goal. Knowing the purpose and different kinds of rites of passage around the world could let you make that the theme of your fic, even if there's no literal, cultural rite of passage involved.
As with using different media, not all of this will play out in writing. But it can give you cool new tools to try, at least, and prereaders or readers will let you know if it just didn't work. (Plus, if a story didn't work because of some kind of grand experiment like "I was trying to tell the Battle of Hastings as a water balloon fight," you still sound kind of smart when you admit that it didn't work.)
Now, I’m not suggesting that a writer needs to be a writer 24/7, that you can never just kick back with a book and enjoy it, or that you need to go out and study everything. None of us will ever have all the tools, and most of us can get by with our basic kit and a few nifty ones for special situations.
But keep in mind what tools you have, and try to look at things you enjoy doing or learning through the lens of a writer every now and then, to pick up on tools that might be there. If something in a movie or book or lecture jumps out at you, see if it’s a tool. When other writers are talking about tools, listen and do your best to understand what this tool is, how it works, and what it does (and doesn’t do.) Even if you never use it, you’ll know why you didn’t use it.
And most importantly, once in awhile, step back from whatever you’re writing and ask yourself if you’re using the right tools. If your story doesn’t feel quite right, see if a different tool will fix it. See if there’s something weird tucked away in the back of your brain that could make this scene work, or make it special, or make it interesting for you to write. The saying goes that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so get yourself some more tools and put down the hammer, and see if your story is really a bolt that will let you finally pull out that Allen wrench.
You know... These blogs you do about writing are quite helpful/
And fascinating. QUITE fascinating.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Normally I try to only comment when I have something to add. For this, though, all I have to say is that I agree completely.
I think there might be one tool you left out: real life. Your own experiences will create some of the most emotional work you can possibly manage.
Now I just need to figure out what tool I'm not using for this one fic...
One of my favorite tools, which is semi-related to studying actor body language in movies/tv/plays, is people watching.
Plunk yourself down in a casual restaurant, or crowded mall, or park bench, whip out your phone or newspaper so you look like you're busy, and surreptitiously watch and listen to people interact. It's amazing the sorts of tells and bits of body language, tone inflections, odd turns-of-phrase, mannerisms, etc. you can pick up from strangers. Not all of it's useful by any means; sometimes you hear and see stuff so strange no one would accept it in fiction as real, but it can be great.
Also pretty fun, if I do say so myself.
Sometimes, I swear, there's too much thinking involved in writing. I wish more people would preach the 'just sit down with a pencil and see what happens' style.
1314520
That is an excellent point. Your own life, and the lives of other people you talk to, is really one of the best ways to figure out emotion and characterization. What you do when you feel a certain way, what other people do, how people feel during life events... even just stuff like how it feels to be out of breath after running a mile, or how it feels to be tired and achy after physical labor can add details to a story.
1314535
I believe there are plenty of examples of that on this website. Some of them are good (or bad) and happy with what they write, and they don't need to listen to me. Some of them are good and want to be better, and some of them are not good and want to be better. That's when people start thinking.
This is why I've always been thankful that my biggest interests growing up, besides just reading reading reading, were in history and psychology. As well as my initial foray into poetry. Those interests, the things I learned, help my writing immensely. I can easily see where I use the things I've learned, and I describe it the same way: as tool's in my arsenal as an author.
Another great blog, agreed 100%--good for newbies and old hands alike.
1314535
I don't think that's at odds with loading up on cool tricks and tools. From what I can tell (and speaking as a total newbie amateur), skilled writers don't need to actively think about what tools they're using because they've become familiar enough with them that they can use them without thinking.
Effortless effort is a great thing, but it tends to require a lot of groundwork.
1314535 I know that I overthink it all the time. Which is why I normally drink a beer or two first...
1314552
I didn't mean to say you shouldn't write advice blogs like this, or that the advice you're giving is wrong. Sorry if it came off that way. I'd still consider myself to be very new to writing, and while blogs like this can be helpful and interesting. More often than not, they lead to a sort of overload of information, more different tips, techniques, and styles than I'm able to absorb at once. And yet it seems like all the best writing I do happens completely unplanned and totally by accident.
That old, 'All battle plans are only good until the first shot is fired' quote comes to mind.
I just think it's worth reminding new writers that sometimes it's worse to over think things than it is to under think things.
1314579
I can see that. I just know so many writers who subscribe to that method and are so close to something special, but they just don't seem to have the craft down yet. Talking to them is frustrating because they're really smart and talented in some areas, but haven't acquired the toolbox, so once a story they'll just trip, and if they had paid attention to story structure or what-have-you they would have nailed it.
There are a few things these blogs don't take into account-- there are people out there with talent, which, when it comes down to it, really just means "a brain that can do some of these things without needing to be told." If they overthink it, they might end up tripping because their brain was already doing that. But often, there are some of these things that they just aren't naturally talented at. Then there's also something to what 1314563 said, which is basically saying that "talent" can be learned, with enough knowledge and practice that you don't even need to think. Most of us probably have some combination of that.
And I don't really think of you as a beginner writer, or if you are you have enough curiosity and talent to fool me.
I don't think I've ever mentioned John Gardner's "On Becoming A Novelist".
Now I have!
I've read a ton of books on writing because it's so interesting and because I'm always looking for another way to kick down obstacles and blocks, but "On Becoming A Novelist" is the single most wonderful book on writing I've ever seen. it's not terribly long, but it's incredible: feels like hanging out in Quills and Sofas talking shop with an amazing writer who's able to convey some of his enthusiasm as he dives merrily into minutiae. I daresay it's more geared to longform writers, but that explains my glee.
As for overthinking, I suffered from that when I tried to draw a comic (which I'll no doubt try to do again someday). As near as I can work out, knowing stuff is a huge deal and can get you out of dead-ends and keep you from being too narrow, but actually creating requires that stuff be second nature. It's this that dies when you overthink, but the only solution I've found is not to refuse to learn. It's to keep working for so long that it all DOES become second nature. I never did that with comics, but I managed it with writing, so I can incorporate thinking into my process without blowing it up.
I like your blogs--they're like the antithesis to mine. Yours are, you know, actually informative and captivating.
—Neil Gaiman, "The Sandman Companion"
1314529
Haha, yeah! For one assignment In my Writer's Craft class, the teacher told us to go people watch and take down some of our findings. I plunked down in the food court of the local mall and picked up on all sorts of silly conversations, my favourite being one between two middle-aged women arguing about gnomes. One was adamant that they benefited a garden aesthetically and testified that they were good luck, and the other swore on her Starbucks mocha-frappa-whatsit that they were hideous and bound to attract ants. I choked on my chow mein, but there were no regrets.
As to this blog post - it is most excellent. A lot of people find out I'm taking English and History and kind of give me this sympathetic look, like "Oh, is that what you're wasting your education money on? Good luck finding a job." (Same goes for teaching, really). But critical thinking skills are super useful in tons of other subjects as well as day-today life. I told one of my profs that English was like "life science" because you're basically studying and learning from the lives and imaginations of thousands of other people. Same goes for history. Its really just one big story, split into pieces that multiple people across the ages have attempted to put back together again. I suppose all that would be considered stuff I put in my writing tool box, and I never really thought of it that way specifically before now. Although my toolbox would probably be more useful if I ever sat down and just opened the damn thing.
So yeah, rambling aside, this was quite interesting. And now I really want to use a cake recipe to structure a plot, because, well, cake.
One aside about the hero's journey:
While it is an effective story structure, unfortunately it has one major flaw, which is that ultimately, it is very execution based. Because so many stories follow the overall hero's journey paradigm it is very easy for your story to feel samey or done unless you do something interesting with it. If there is any way to write a terrible adventure story, it is following the hero's journey and not executing it well.
1315173
The reason people make fun of history majors is because the major is pretty much entirely worthless. History is interesting, but there is no reason why you can't teach yourself history on your own time without spending large amounts of money doing so. Thus the main reason people study history in school is... to teach other people history. It has basically zero application otherwise, not because history isn't useful to know but rather because I don't actually need to hire a history major for pretty much anything that isn't teaching, and if I need to know about history, I can just go read a book, a Wikipedia article, or go to some other resource.
English is somewhat different, but I suspect it goes back to the joke that I heard from a guy in the Army while at the Naval Academy - the Army doesn't issue marksmanship ribbons because in the army, you're assumed to be able to shoot straight, while in the Navy and Air Force, they give you a ribbon for it. Basically, proficiency at writing is assumed for all professions, so by majoring in English, you're majoring in what is considered to be a basic skill by all other professions. This is not to say that training your reading and writing skills are useless - far from it - but simply that if you are an engineer, a scientist, a lawyer, or just about anything else, you have to have communication skills. It doesn't particularly help that the liberal arts community is (quite rightly) perceived as very frequently being out of touch with reality. While training your writing ability does require feedback, training your reading ability is, like history, something you can do on your own, which further damages the value of the major in the eyes of many - and ultimately many feel that writing itself is something you end up best practicing by doing, and that many English departments end up incestuous and too in love with themselves to really recognize what real people demand.
So, while it may seem ridiculous to you that people don't prize people with those majors, there are actually very good reasons for it.
1315354 I want to argue you thesis there, but I'm having trouble putting my finger on exactly what I disagree with.
You are correct in noting that the popular perceptions of liberal arts degrees. They are frequently seen as not very useful, but I believe you also make the not as accurate assumption that more scientific degrees do not have this problem.
Engineers also have to learn to sell their degree, unless the degree is itself obscure. Computer Engineers and computer scientists will often have a have to sit down and explain why they would be a valuable asset to a company; most places already have an in-house IT guy who seems to fix all the problems. Without developing outside skills, the best hope for a computer scientist is Geek Squad (who are nice people)
Fun fact: Law school graduates who get lawyer jobs after law school: about 15% of graduates. 85% can't get lawyer jobs.
The fact of the matter is: technical requirements for most jobs are pretty low. The difference between someone who gets hired and someone who doesn't is networking, communication skills, and minimal technical competence.
Source: three years experience in HR, specifically hiring and recruitment.
tl;dr: internships and network = jobs. Types of degrees don't mean all that much.
It is much more complicated than this.
Computer Scientists don't have the problem of their degree appearing useless (though over time, at least to many more technical folks, it is starting to draw closer to an English degree - "Yeah, good job, you know about computers. But so does everyone else and their dog who works here." One of the most practical uses of said degrees is programming, but a lot of people know how to program now, so you have to actually prove that you are good at it. The real problem, though, is that a lot of people went into computer science, so the law of supply and demand is at work - if you have too many people who get CS degrees, it doesn't matter how useful they are if you don't need that many people who are that good with computers.
On the other hand, computer engineering is a entirely different kettle of fish, despite the fact that many people get confused about them. If you need someone to do computer hardware design, you need a computer engineer, there's not really any getting around it. Again, if there is a problem with CE degrees, it is again supply and demand, though given that you understand circuit design and programming, you have a somewhat broader array of possible jobs.
Engineers, however, generally don't have nearly that much trouble getting jobs. While it is true you must always sell yourself, engineering degrees are very valuable even if you aren't working in engineering because of what they represent, and it is easy to sell yourself and your technical skills. I am a biomedical engineer by training for instance, but I have never actually had a job in biomedical engineering. People don't have trouble figuring out why I'm useful though; I can tell them about my knowledge of electrical engineering, chemistry, mechanical engineering, math, computer skills, ect. I've got a huge toolbox of skills to draw upon, and so even if I don't get a job in my specific discipline, it is not as if I am somehow magically unable to get a job. Many engineers end up doing fairly random things but their degrees are still useful to them in their jobs, even if they aren't directly related to their engineering degree. Scientific knowledge in general is highly applicable in a wide variety of technical fields.
This isn't really a meaningful statistic, because (to the shock of most people) law degrees are not only about actually practicing law. There are a lot of legal professions which are not about practicing law, and a lot of people end up doing those things instead.
That being said, there is something of an excess of people with law degrees at the moment because a lot of people decided to get law degrees recently. The problem here is not that your law degree is useless, but that there is too much competition in the field and you may not be able to get a job in law at all - which means you spent a lot of money going to law school for nothing.
This depends on what sort of company you're working for. I will note that while it is most certainly true that most jobs don't actually have terribly high technical requirements, I will also note that it is the jobs with high technical requirements which very frequently pay well and which have the least competition for them.
Working as a laboratory technician, you doin't actually need that much in the way of technical skills (though conversely, they make the difference between an okay lab tech and an excellent one). Working as an actual engineer, or as QC, or as a lead worker in a lab, or many other similar positions, technical skills are incredibly important. And when I look around at jobs, the jobs that I see open for ages are ALL jobs that require high technical skills, while the jobs with lesser requirements get filled much more quickly.
And while yes, you must always sell yourself, your degree does in fact matter, though so does work experience - if you worked for a few years in the profession, no one actually cares what your degree is exactly, but on the other hand, without the degree, there's a good chance you never worked in the profession - and it puts a hard cieling on your advancement in many professions if you lack a relevant degree. You can start out as a lab tech and end up an engineer, then an engineering manager, but if you don't have a scientific or engineering degree, chances are you will be passed up - and even then, people with masters and PHDs will often go ahead of you in line.
Moreover, the skills you gain from acquiring your degree are very relevant. If you know your stuff from an engineering/science standpoint, you have a big edge in technical fields.
Now, if you are talking about non-technical professions, that is a bit different. Sure, anyone can work in sales, though having relevant knowledge can make a big difference there and can help you connect to your customers - but good people handling skills and making good use of your resources are also vitally important skills there, and only a few sales jobs actually REQUIRE technical skills. There are lots of secretarial or similar jobs which don't require you to have any particular technical skills (though depending on who you work for, they can again be helpful). Secretarial jobs again don't require technical skills (though if you work for some companies they can, again, be useful). And in all of these sorts of jobs having experience greatly trumps your degree - having actual sales experience is the best way to get a job in sales, and no one actually cares if you have a degree in underwater basket weaving, they care if in your last job you could sell stuff. Of course it might be more difficult to GET a sales job if your degree is in underwater basket weaving, but once you've got your foot in that door, meh.
Experience in general proves that you are competent at whatever it was you were doing previously, which is why experience is so important (and why people like to see internships). Though of course, recommendations matter too.
1316022
The problem with what you're saying here is that the argument is just as valid for English and history degrees. It's still a matter of supply and demand, it's just that English and history majors have far outstripped the demand for those positions, making the degree seem useless. But I don't think that we want museum directors using wikipedia to catalog and analyze items, we need a few people around who have actually studied history. Just not as many as want to learn about history. The same with English; we need editors and are willing to pay a few critics, but those jobs are few and far between.
And any degree at all offers extra skill sets that set you apart from people with no degree. If nothing else, even a philosophy degree says "this person could show up for most classes and turn in assignments on time, write a paper that a person could read, and process the information in a college textbook if given a semester," which many employers in your standard paper pushing type jobs like to know.
You can teach yourself (or develop skills through apprenticeship) in any field (though I'll also note that someone has to write those books and papers that you'd be learning from), but a degree tells people looking to hire you that the college promises that you did that. There are important positions in the liberal arts like anywhere else, but they're rare. So if everyone in the world stopped getting history or English degrees there would be a demand for them, but that's unlikely to ever happen (especially since people still get philosophy degrees, which I will grant you are totally useless.)
1315354
Oh, it doesn't surprise me at all that people scoff at it, really. I get the stigma around it (lol, you're majoring in your own language - shouldn't you know that by now, derp-di-derp), but I don't believe that stigma is entirely earned. As an English major who has read and corrected essays by nurses, engineers, dental hygienists, math majors, etc, its obvious that "writing" and "reading" skills are not as easily earned or employed as some people may think - and I'm not just talking about proper grammar or dotting your i's and crossing your t's. Getting a certain message across with the right tone can be quite difficult at times, and I know plenty of people who find it taxing (as I do, as well). Not to say people who don't major in English can't write (and that everyone who can does - I've corrected essays from certain English majors that left much to be desired in certain departments directly related to the subject, and I know I'm far from perfect and always have more to learn) but I still view it as a very worthwhile area of study. English isn't really about writing at its core, either, but critical thinking, which a lot of people tend to skim over or ignore. Critical thinking skills can also be learned on one's own (like basically any other broad level skill or subject - there are books out there on pretty much everything for those with the right inclinations, mindset and determination) but I find studying things in the way that I have has greatly broadened my horizons in many other subjects, as well as life in general. I've also taken science courses for my degree, and English and History both have aided a great deal in helping me understand the material (and are more connected to certain things in other areas of study than many people believe).
In essence, I don't believe the skills picked up while completing an English or History degree are necessarily universally known or practiced by people in other professions, (nor that it is unlikely that many people develop these skills without spending lots of money on school - merely that for what I want to do, I need a stupid piece of paper saying that I am capable of certain things, regardless of whether or not I can actually accomplish them) but I do see how many people see English or the social sciences as "lost arts" perpetuated by old windbags who would rather prattle on about Shakespeare's brilliance than real world issues. Many of my profs are aware of this stigma as well, and are some of the most down to earth and approachable people I've ever met, so I think sometimes the stigma arises from very unfair assumptions. But everyone's gotta deal with those, so if I sometimes come across as a derp who spends too much money on silly non-practical subjects or lofty, ivory tower ideas, I guess its alright.
1315556
Pretty much this. I should've just saved my rambling.
Whatever's big in the economy at the moment usually gets jobs filled. I know two girls with biomedical degrees who had to go back to college for different programs because they couldn't find jobs, and it wasn't because they did poorly in their program or didn't bother looking through a lot of their options.
1316096 - And this, as well.
Sorry for spamming your blog comments with wall-o-text randomness.
1316096
Oh this is true; there are SOME jobs that English and History degrees do give you, and it is also true that the market is oversaturated with people with such degrees.
I guess what I'm really getting at is narrowness. Engineering degrees are useful for a wide variety of technical professions, and engineers and scientists often end up wandering off into something which isn't their degree exactly but is at least tangentially related - a mechanical engineer may end up working for HP doing materials science, even if that isn't exactly his specialty. A biomedical engineer can easily end up working as a mechanical, electrical, chemical, or biological engineer, or doing scientific work, or doing some sort of monitoring work, or working in sales or technical support for a company of that nature, or do materials science work, or end up dealing with hospitals in some capacity...
With a History degree, it really isn't applicable. Yeah, you have shown that you can graduate from college (which to be fair does score you some points, and with good reason), but your actual history-related skills are pretty much going to be useless in most jobs outside of the profession. Yeah, history is the sort of thing that occasionally enlightens you, and maybe you'll work as a journalist or something, but... yeah.
English is more applicable because communication skills are important, though depending on your specialty, you may not have actually picked up on that all that much. Someone who focuses heavily on rhetoric or technical communication actually has a fairly valuable skill-set (well, assuming they're any good at it) which can be applied to other things, while on the other hand, someone who focused on literature or linguistics probably has far more limited opportunities.
I have often heard it expressed by engineers and non-engineers who work in a wide variety of fields that people like having engineers even in non-engineering jobs due to their technical expertise, adaptability, and broad knowledge base. Sure, if you're selling soap or cars, no one needs you to be an engineer, and there are jobs that you don't want to give an engineer because you're afraid they are just going to jump ship at the first opportunity.
On the other hand, if you're selling steel products or chemicals or industrial goods or something similar, engineers are useful because they can build rapport with engineers and other technical people on the customer end and are better able to tell the customer what they want/need or how they can best meet the needs of their customers, or give them options. Yeah, anyone CAN do this, but having someone with direct expert knowledge is helpful, and I've noticed that sales people with scientific backgrounds are very good at dealing with people in technology companies and quickly build up a sense of loyalty with their customers.
1316176
The fundamental difference is, if you fail at thinking critically while writing, you fail to convince people or you write something which is wrong.
If you fail at critical thinking in engineering, reality corrects you - whatever you were designing doesn't work, or fails.
As Richard Feynmann once said, "Reality cannot be fooled", which is why critical thinking skills are so well-taught by math and science - because if you fail to think critically, reality itself will tell you so, whereas it is much more ambigious with a composition, where others must correct you.
And to be fair, there are disciplines which are much more poorly regarded than English - History is a fairly classic "useless degree", but philosophy is even more poorly viewed, as are things like African-American Studies, Feminism, and other similar degrees. Political science is another classic "you had better hope you're going to be a teacher because otherwise you're not going to find a job" degree (though to be fair, a lot of poli sci majors go into law, where it is at least useful if you go and work for a politician or as a lobbyist).
But you're right, we are kind of derailing poor Bookplayer's blog post with this.
1316193>>1316176
Still off topic: I had a conversation with my mom this weekend that reminded me of this conversation.
Background: My mom's current job is as a statistician on a project that's been going on for 18 years or so now about health care policy and aging. (It started through University of MD, but a few years ago the funding started going through Boston College. She works from home, so it doesn't matter to her position.)
Anyway, mom works with a handful of PhD candidates, and as part of qualifying for their PhD they have to write three scientific articles that are publication quality. The problem is (according to her) the emphasis has shifted so far to research and methods that none of them can do this. Their papers are, as mom put it, undergrad work. They don't know how to express their ideas in a concise and organized manner that would even get them considered by a journal for publication. The candidates have the technical skills-- they can run stats in their sleep, set up and conduct studies, they know the subject, etc. They just can't write.
One she's been working with recently, after a year of help from her and the woman's adviser, was finally told to just hire a freelance editor to fix the things before she submitted them to the PhD committee. Apparently this is becoming more and more common in sciences, for an editor to have to look over the papers for writing style and organization before they even go to the journal editors for the technical checking. (Traditionally, scientists were expected to be able to write a coherent paper and journal editors just check for things like correct citation and flaws in the study.)
This is kind of a big deal, because researchers do a lot of writing. Between journal articles and grant proposals, I think my mom actually spends most of her time writing, and as I said, she's supposed to be the statistician. So apparently, the English majors are going to be increasingly necessary if the sciences don't put more emphasis on communication skills.
(Also relevant, this all came up because my stepfather is considering going into freelance technical editing. He doesn't have an English degree, or any college degree, but he went into linguistics in the Navy, then was hired at the NSA and wound up writing briefs there. Which goes into the whole "there are other ways to gain experience that are just as good as degrees" thing.)
Anyway, this just reminded me of this conversation, and I thought you guys might be interested.
1321812
My university, at least, required that everyone be proficient at writing. I never had to take a writing course in college but that was because I entered college with a year and a half of credit under my belt; the normal people all took at least eight hours of writing classes, plus a bunch of hours of other humanities courses which (I hope) involved writing a fair bit as well.
We had to write a great deal in engineering and science classes, too - a great number of our classes required at LEAST one "real" paper on something, especially the upper level courses, and lab courses are also supposed to help get people used to writing about scientific methodology. Indeed, this is the main point of lab classes - out in the real world, chances are you're never actually going to do anything you did in chem lab, but you ARE going to have to be able to write and follow procedures, present your findings, and write up a conclusion. Indeed, in most of my lab classes, how well you could actually perform the procedure was mostly irrelevant. You could have absolutely awful yields on your experiments and still get an A in the class, as the purpose was to be able to write. Now, this was less true in organic chemistry lab, where we had at least a couple of labs where we had to figure out what chemical (or chemicals) we were given or what their compositions were, but we still had plenty of labs where the main point was the lab report. I'm pretty sure you could get at least a C even in organic chemistry lab even if you failed to produce a single chemical successfully as long as you could write a solid lab report.
The problem is that English majors aren't actually that useful for such things, as while editing is all well and good, your ultimate purpose is to communicate your ideas. If you can't do that, then the English major can't -help- you because they have no idea what -you-, Mr. (or Ms.) I am writing a dense technical paper, are actually trying to communicate. This is why communication skills are so very vital - an editor can help you present your ideas better, but they can't actually do that without you being able to actually present your ideas. If I'm writing a paper about, say, the hedgehog genes in developmental biology, there's a good chance that someone without knowledge of developmental biology is going to have no idea what I'm talking about, and thus isn't going to be able to really comment usefully on it.
Moreover, most English majors have zero experience writing the sort of paper that gets published in Science, both in writing style and in content. Technical science articles are frequently nigh-incomprehensible to people without a background in statistics and at least a solid grounding in the sciences, and some papers are nigh-incomprehensible unless you are a specialist in the field because they are written with the specialist in mind.
There are English majors who do specialize in technical writing, but if you actually wanted to be an editor for scientific papers, you'd probably need to know organic and inorganic chemistry, physics, mid-level biology, calculus, and statistics. A lot of people go into English to escape these things.
Of course I am a strong proponent of a solid grounding in science and statistics being required for EVERYONE to graduate from college, along with making sure that everyone is at least proficient at writing and reading comprehension. Of course, I am proponent of the same in high school.
What discipline of science were those folks in? Were they psychology folks? Or were they something else?
1322045
I think they're usually either developmental psychology or health policy. Like I said, the study is about health policy and aging, basically trying to determine the best way for medicare funds to be offered to those dealing with the medical problems of aging (or other people without a "recovery" option). For example, a person may qualify, due to disability, for a home health worker. But what if that person doesn't feel they need a home health worker, and would rather use the funds to make a room in their daughter's house handicapped accessible; in the long run would that result in better and/or less expensive care, thus making it a good deal for the state? They've been looking at programs that deal with this in various states and assessing the satisfaction of the consumers and their families, along with the budgets and guidelines for the programs.
And the point is that, while maybe you went to a particularly good college, these are PhD candidates. They've been though four plus years of colleges, and been accepted into a PhD program at fairly good schools (UMD and Boston College aren't Ivy league, but they aren't exactly backwater schools.) I don't know a college that will give you a Bachelor's degree in anything without at least six credits of English, and usually at least three credits and a lab in science. And most of these people probably have Master's degrees, meaning they've probably written a thesis. The problem is that, within their program, things have been focused on the science aspects to the exclusion of being able to communicate well. (the woman I was referring to: apparently her PhD committee has be more focused on the problem of showing her ability to analyze quantitative data, because this study focuses mainly on qualitative. But in doing this they haven't noticed that she can't produce a paper.)
And I disagree about English majors not being useful for this. The point of the papers is to explain the concepts, and organizing them is a matter of doing that in a way that makes sense. There might be some basic "fill me in on what you want to say" that needs to be done, but the technical aspects aren't important, what's important that they aren't getting is stuff like writing a clear thesis statement, keeping each part of the paper on theme (whether it's keeping on track from general to specific, or stating the ideas you plan to cover in the thesis and outlining them in an organized way.) Any editor trained enough in technical writing of any kind should know enough to recognize when a paragraph has gone off topic, or when specifics are being presented before the general idea has been explained.
(Also worth noting-- do you have a Masters degree? I seem to remember reading somewhere that you do, but since you don't mention graduate level work here, I'll point out that, while I don't, I'm informed by both my mother and sister (MS in marine science, so this does include the hard sciences) that writing a thesis or scientific paper are worlds different than the papers produced for undergrad work. It's possible that if you've only dealt with undergrad work, the people who passed your classes might not be able to cut it in writing a publishable paper, even if their lab reports were top notch.)
Well, looking at these degrees:
Health policy major curriculum
Here's a Developmental Psychology major
I dunno, they aren't really... encouraging to me looking at the course listing there. I mean, the health policy major doesn't even seem to involve any actual knowledge of biology or actual medicine which. There are zero lab classes between those two majors, and the developmental psychology major doesn't even require stats (though maybe that university just sucks - Warner Pacific seems to have an almost completely different curriculum which looks much better, though that only raises further questions as to who accredits these programs if they're that divergent, given that one of those majors is like, an actual science major, while the other one looks like it almost entirely psychology). Does she know where they did their undergrad work/masters work? That might help more in knowing what sort of background they really have in this stuff.
You are, of course, absolutely right that writing a lab report and writing an actual scientific paper are very different things, but on the other hand, these guys haven't even necessarily done even -that- judging by those curricula. I mean, maybe they had a different curriculum wherever they went to school, but still... I dunno. It looks like a rather weak major as far as actually digging into the subject matter goes.
I'm shocked, actually. I had assumed this was a Masters + PhD program, rather than just a PHD program; I am actually quite baffled by the fact that they somehow managed to get a masters degree without actually doing any of this stuff :| So I can't really say. I do know that some undergraduate curricula are completely terrible, but I had assumed (or maybe just hoped) that masters programs would be better. Though to be fair I am mostly familiar with science and engineering, and to a lesser extent law school and vet school (because of friends who went there) - I don't really know anything about liberal arts post-grad work.
Maybe I'm just crazy. Or have unrealistically high expectations.
No, I don't have a masters degree, though I did do a year of graduate work before I ended up getting a job (I hadn't actually wanted to go back to school, but I couldn't find a job because I graduated in 2007 and well, you remember what happened -that- year, I was going up against people with masters degrees for entry level positions :( So I went back to school after being unemployed for a while, but I wasn't really happy being back in school so I took a job when one was offered to me rather than continuing on with graduate work.) I do know that masters work is different, though honestly it also depends on what sort of courses you're taking - really many upper-level courses can be taken by undergraduate students or graduate students, at least at Vanderbilt, so I took classes which were 50%+ masters students even as an undergrad. I have zero personal experience with PHD work.
But the courses I did work in, even as an undergrad we were doing things like criticizing scientific papers in class, it wasn't something we weren't exposed to, and a few of my classes focused very heavily on such papers. With graduate classes, we looked at papers regularly.
Yes, lab reports are fundamentally different, on the other hand they actually teach you a lot of the skills you need - when you look at an actual scientific paper, they are structured differently and written differently, but at their very core they are in fact lab reports of sorts, even if you don't write them the same way. You have a basic fundamental understanding of what you do in a scientific paper from a lab report - you've got your summjary, your introduction, your background, your methodology, your results, and your conclusion, which is still fundamentally the same whether it is a lab report or scientific paper, though in the latter case you structure it slightly differently. At its core, you are still writing the same sort of thing.
Of course, maybe Vanderbilt, being Vanderbilt, had us do it differently than most schools did. I always found the "background" section of those reports kind of dumb, but retrospectively, I've kind of realized that we basically were writing lab reports closer to the format of scientific papers.
How much exposure did they have to actually -reading- papers in classes and criticizing and analyzing them? If you don't read them, then you're not going to be able to write them because you have no idea what is expected of you. That would be my main question/suspicion there.
And quite frankly, as far as this goes:
This is the sort of thing I'd expect you to be taught in middle school. Heck, I remember being taught this stuff in middle school. While kids always detest the five paragraph essay (intro paragraph, three body paragraphs, conclusion) it is a very concise way of writing and teaches structure. If you can't write a clear thesis statement, honestly I don't think you should be getting out of high school with a diploma, let alone getting a bloody master's degree. That's just a whole level of suck I like to pretend doesn't exist. The same applies to keeping your paragraphs on a single topic.
Specifics being presented before the general idea is a much more forgivable mistake (everyone and anyone can make THAT mistake), but it makes me wonder if they even read over their own stuff before submitting it, as while it is easy to make this mistake while writing, it is obvious that you've done so if you bother to read back over your work.
Of course, now that I'm thinking about it, I remember a friend in college who was struggling to write his papers. Another one of my friends took him aside and taught him the "BLANK is BLANK because of BLANK, BLANK, and BLANK" thesis statement and the five paragraph essay structure, and like magic his papers went from Ds and Cs to As and Bs (he even put up his first A-paper on the mini fridge). So maybe this problem is more common than I want to think it is.
I have completely bizarre conceptions of what people know and how knowledgeable they are and what they are taught in school because I have never really spent much time around "normal people". I went to a (public charter) French Elementary School, then I spent one year in a school in Washington where I was in the TAG program, then I spent all my middle school in honors classes in a town where more people have PhDs than attend church on a weekly basis, then did the same in high school and graduated from high school after taking 11 AP classes. I never SPENT time in normal classrooms around normal kids, and even my honors classes were full of people whose parents were doctors, lawyers, engineers, and college professors.
This may be a major contributing factor in me thinking that this is incredibly basic stuff: I have zero conception of what "normal" people actually know or experience, and I just kind of assume that because I knew something back in middle or high school, that everyone had that kind of experience.
1321812
In my Sociology for educators class the prof talked about how a lot of people are graduating university/college/masters programs without being able to complete certain tasks in writing, so its interesting to hear about an actual example that seems to follow that trend to some degree. These people are incredibly intelligent, its just that certain skills I guess get neglected in favour of others. If nobody understands what you're trying to say, what use is the actual information you're trying to convey?
Pffft. Zecora would be proud.