In a phone conversation last night, Shaun and I started talking about "the way we used to write", that stilted, overformal style that I still use when I need to produce an essay on autopilot or in a very short amount of time. Apart from improving my ability to be succinct, I don't think college has done a whole lot for me in terms of changing the way I write, and that depresses me. Back in the day, when I first became conscious of the fact that writing well was important to me, I did what many of us (I'm sure) have tried to do - that is, attempt to make my writing sound genuine, switch from imitation to creation. It's tough, and the ever-present temptation for us, the Internet generation, is to retreat into the save haven of no-caps, indulge in an orgy of sentence fragments and ideas that trail off into nowhere. To brandish solecism like a sword and hide beneath the excuse that everyone else is doing the same thing. (No offense intended - as you can see, most of my blog is written in this fashion.)

While I was in R.I., I remember reading a book on style which asserted that if you master the rules of grammar and the principles of cadence, and have a wide enough vocabulary, you will, with enough practice, find your voice. It will, so to speak, ying2 ren4 er2 jie3, manifest itself unexpectedly like a Magic Eye picture from the graininess of your knowledge and technique. Whoever it was who wrote that is a liar, or at least it certainly hasn't happened to me. When I look at my writing, I feel that there is nothing beneath the words, whereas when I look at good writing, I sense a presence, something moving in the deep that tells me not only what the author is trying to say, but who he is. As a corollary, I look at the papers I have written for science classes, and I think (if I have to say so myself), that they're really good, one or two worthy of submission to journals. And that's the case because there does not need to be anything beneath the surface in a research article. All one has to do is say it like it is. Whereas, in humanities classes and in the rubbishy writing I do to amuse myself in my free time, there is nothing substantive within, just like those huge Cadbury eggs you expect to be filled with chocolate but which turn out to contain tinny plastic toys instead.

I guess college teaches you what you can't do as much as what you can. Perhaps what it should do as well is give the really hopeless people a good box on the ears and tell them to stop trying.