One More Time

A reposted repost.

Around the time the first draft of the first essay is due I start hearing questions that all start the same way: Can I . . . . ? The student then, almost inevitably, voices a "rule" about writing that he or she is worried about breaking: Can I use I? Can I use "you"? Can I use "we"? Can I use contractions? Can I use the word "because"?

The answers are: Yes, No, Yes, Yes YES!

Actually, the answers are all YES. I only make a tiny exception for "you" because it is difficult to use well and even more difficult to use it and maintain a sufficiently formal academic style.

I really hate these kinds of rules. Yes, of course, you (breaking the "you" rule here) have to abide by the basic grammatical conventions of standard English. But otherwise, there's an awful lot of ambiguity and flexibility in how we use language. Why put up obstacles to expressing meaningful ideas with all of these little rules?

More disturbingly, students frequently ask some variation of this: "Can I actually tell my reader what I'm trying to argue?" I know that some writing instructors come up with lists of rules and "Don't use the first person" or "Don't use contractions" might be on that list. But, "Don't tell your reader what you are up to"?!

Somehow, somewhere along the line, students get the sense that writing is about a set of tricks and isn't about trying to convey meaning to a reader. One the most literal level, I think students have been told to avoid "metacommentary"--saying what the essay is doing or arguing ( I will argue that . . . This essay will then look at . . . .). I fail to understand this rule given that most PUBLISHED academic essays use metacommentary extensively. If your ideas are complicated, giving your reader these concrete handhold really helps.

I also worry that this belief that writers have to disguise their ideas under fancy terms or convoluted sentence structures and follow a bunch of arbitrary rules means that beginning writers are afraid to fully engage in the messy work of drafting BEFORE editing. All of these rules can makes a writer stop and second guess every sentence before she has even worked out the main substance.
Somehow, somewhere along the line, students get the sense that writing is about a set of tricks and isn't about trying to convey meaning to a reader. One the most literal level, I think students have been told to avoid "metacommentary"--saying what the essay is doing or arguing ( I will argue that . . . This essay will then look at . . . .). I fail to understand this rule given that most PUBLISHED academic essays use metacommentary extensively. If your ideas are complicated, giving your reader these concrete handhold really helps.

Stopping to take a breath and write "Okay, what I'm trying to say here is . . . ." can lead to great revelations. If you been taught to avoid using the first person or to avoid using metacommentary, you've been deprived of this tool. You can always go back and take the main idea and edit out the thinking. But do the thinking first!

So, whatever it is, if it helps YOU say what YOU want to say--yes, you can do that.