12 – Introduction
excellence in a first draft; but they are probably the kinds of people
referred to by E. H. Carr who can also play chess in their heads. If you
do have difficulty in managing to say what you mean, you should pay
particular attention to Part III of this book.
If you decide that clarifying the relationship between you,
your subject matter and your language is a significant problem, then
it would be a good idea to study closely what E. H. Carr says about
how he approaches the writing of history (pp. 5–6 above). The implication is that your knowledge and understanding are formulated in
your language, not merely ‘communicated’ by means of language. In
choosing our language we are choosing and establishing our point of
view on the subject matter and our answer to the question raised by
the essay topic. Each time you go round the cycle of reading, writing and thinking, you are gradually improving your understanding
of the subject matter and your expression of that understanding in
English. You are getting away from that Mephistophelian voice in
you which says ‘I understand this, but I just can’t express it.’ If you
can’t express it, the presumption must be that you don’t sufficiently
understand it.
4
You and your reader
While grappling with the problems of understanding and knowing
the material, you have another matter to attend to. This is the interpersonal or communicative function of your writing. Writing is not
wholly a problem in communication, as we have just seen; but now we
must look at those aspects of writing which are governed by the need
to present your ideas and your argument in a way that will help to ‘get
them across’. In some senses communicating successfully involves little more than learning and exploiting certain conventions of writing
and presentation. In this respect the aim to be achieved is to present
your work in such a way that the medium (paper, fonts, setting-out,
etc.) does not draw the reader’s attention away from the argument you
are making: you are not writing advertising copy, putting together a
newsletter or making a Powerpoint ‘presentation’. There is, however,
one problem of communicating which will not go away quite so easily.
excellence in a first draft; but they are probably the kinds of people
referred to by E. H. Carr who can also play chess in their heads. If you
do have difficulty in managing to say what you mean, you should pay
particular attention to Part III of this book.
If you decide that clarifying the relationship between you,
your subject matter and your language is a significant problem, then
it would be a good idea to study closely what E. H. Carr says about
how he approaches the writing of history (pp. 5–6 above). The implication is that your knowledge and understanding are formulated in
your language, not merely ‘communicated’ by means of language. In
choosing our language we are choosing and establishing our point of
view on the subject matter and our answer to the question raised by
the essay topic. Each time you go round the cycle of reading, writing and thinking, you are gradually improving your understanding
of the subject matter and your expression of that understanding in
English. You are getting away from that Mephistophelian voice in
you which says ‘I understand this, but I just can’t express it.’ If you
can’t express it, the presumption must be that you don’t sufficiently
understand it.
4
You and your reader
While grappling with the problems of understanding and knowing
the material, you have another matter to attend to. This is the interpersonal or communicative function of your writing. Writing is not
wholly a problem in communication, as we have just seen; but now we
must look at those aspects of writing which are governed by the need
to present your ideas and your argument in a way that will help to ‘get
them across’. In some senses communicating successfully involves little more than learning and exploiting certain conventions of writing
and presentation. In this respect the aim to be achieved is to present
your work in such a way that the medium (paper, fonts, setting-out,
etc.) does not draw the reader’s attention away from the argument you
are making: you are not writing advertising copy, putting together a
newsletter or making a Powerpoint ‘presentation’. There is, however,
one problem of communicating which will not go away quite so easily.