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THE_QUESTION_OF_ESSAYS

                                                 October 13, 2004
                           
For much of my high school       
career, I was incapable of       
doing essay assignments.  It     
took me some time to put my      
finger on the difficulty:        
                                 
  I believed that language      
  is for communication.

"Why am I writing something
about 'Romeo and Juliet' for        (Though the problem was
someone with an English             not quite articulated
degree that knows the play          so clearly in my
backwards and forwards?             mind, or I might
What am I going to tell them        have solved it sooner.)
that they don't already
know?  Is there any point in
writing about something if
you have nothing new to say?"


     There's a mental trick to              
     doing these assignments that                                            
     apparently comes much more          
     easily to some than others:         
     you need to write for an                                               
     imaginary audience that's           
     different from the actual           
     audience.  You describe                                     
     "Romeo and Juliet" for the          
     benefit of some dimwit that         
     doesn't exist, and the              Instead, I would scrape together
     teacher then grades you on          a handful of observations I     
     your ability to say the             thought might be new to the     
     stunningly obvious with the         instructor, and just write down 
     correct form.                       brief disjointed notes about them. 
                                             
                                              (Yeah, I haven't 
                                               changed much.)          
They used to recite that the proper
form is "introduction/main
body/conclusion", where the
introduction is where you *state
your purpose* --

That left me thinking:

Okay, so what is my purpose?

Maybe I should use an introduction
like this:

  My purpose in writing this paper is to
  earn a passing grade in a class taught
  by ____, and toward that end I will be
  pretending to describe the play "Romeo
  and Juliet" for some idiot from Mars
  that has never heard of it before.  In
  an attempt at securing a high-grade, I
  intend to name-drop a few famous
  critics, and incorporate several buzz
  words of which ____ seems enamored.




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