Christian Roots: Medieval and Renaissance Art and Science

On Essay Writing and Writing Groups

This is a long essay about writing short essays. Read it before you write your first paper, and then read it again before you write subsequent papers. An essai (the original French word) means a try, an attempt. In keeping with the spirit of the original meaning of the word, we urge you to keep trying and attempting to write a strong academic essay in Christian Roots. Understand, though, that it takes most people a long time to master the skill of writing. Expect each of your essays to show improvement. Use your fellow students' and your faculty member's constructive criticisms to make each paper better than the last.

In Christian Roots you will learn to think on paper (or on the computer screen). We call this writing-as-thinking. It's an awkward phrase, but its awkwardness is perhaps justified by the fact that "writing-as-thinking" keeps alive the intimate and fertile connection between writing and thought in an age in which it is often assumed that writing is simply a form of transcribing what's in one's mind, period. Nothing could be less true of either writing or thinking. You'll be writing essays to your peers in the program, essays that pose good questions and develop sound arguments. To help you, you'll have a weekly writing workshop and individual conferences with the faculty when necessary.

Why write essays?

Commercials and campaign spots push the average consumer and the average voter this way and that; but how do thoughtful and responsible people make up their minds? Such people read, write, and discuss arguments hoping to arrive at thoughtful supportable conclusions. They approach this work with an open mind.

An open mind isn't a blank mind. A person with an open mind is one who can examine his or her own opinions and those of others, and make judgments about their quality. It's not enough to say that everyone ends up with a different opinion about X because everyone is a different person. Insofar as people communicate (and writing is an especially thoughtful form of communicating), they figure out which opinions have more merit than others. This doesn't mean that there is one and only one right opinion on any given question, but it does mean that some opinions are less convincing, if they are based on factual errors or illogical reasoning or prejudice; and others are stronger, if they're factually more accurate, logically more compelling, and actually reach their intended audience.

Perhaps you know how Socrates, in Plato's Republic, confounded the passionate but untrained young orator Thrasymachus, because Thrasymachus thought that plenty of enthusiasm and will-power was sufficient; he didn't realize that to persuade thoughtful people, you have to give sufficient and convincing reasons for what you say. We do this in discussion all the time: we try to give our friends and associates reasons that are good enough for them to understand why we do what we do, or why they might agree to do what we want them to do, or why we believe what we believe. "Reasons," in this context, aren't just statements of fact; they're also feeling statements about what we care about, what we're passionate about, what's interesting or important or valuable, and why. Reasons are not merely statements of belief; they are statements that give the grounds for particular beliefs.

So, Why write essays? To find out what one thinks and why. Essay writing is not the only way in which to reach this end. But it is a particularly powerful tool. For most of us, perhaps nearly all of us, really don't know what we think about something, and why we think that and not something else, until we write it down. Writing, practiced in this spirit, is an act of inquiry and a process of discovery. Why write essays? Because, in short, you make yourself own up to what you think. It is for this reason that skill in essay writing is so important in the study of important intellectual and political questions. Knowing what you think and study go hand in hand, and neither is compatible with being pushed this way and then that by commercials and political ads.

The process of thinking on paper (or on the computer screen)

Writing a paper, an essay, may not always have been a rewarding experience for you. It may have been a ritualized act of writing a "five-paragraph essay": Write it, give it to your teacher or put in the teacher's mailbox. You were lucky if the (one) reader was ever actually interested in what you said. In a big university, perhaps an anonymous Reader graded the paper. You got it back with few comments and a judgment of quality attached to it, an A, B, C, etc. You wrote it, but perhaps nobody ever really thought about it. This process doesn't have much to do with serious and interesting inquiry.

Evergreen encourages you to think on paper and gives you a writing group where you can present some of your papers. You read above that the kind of writing we're asking you to do is an act of inquiry, an act of figuring out what you have to say. Writing-as-inquiry is a process. The essay is the product of this process, but to make that product good we have to acquire the habit of revision. It is almost, but not quite, true to say that there is no such thing as writing; there is only revision. The point of this little maxim is that good writing is good because the writer has really worked at it. Really working at it, in the context of a college program likes ours, entails learning from constructive criticism and suggestions gained in writing groups and then trying out a new version, making a revision. One consequence of this concern for revision is the necessity of your either writing on or transferring your writing to the computer. Moving and revising text on the screen allows you to try revisions or reformulations without becoming committed to them.

 

Who am I writing to--and what's expected?

All of the time, you’ll be writing with your seminar in mind as the audience. If your seminar leader and seminar members are the audience for what you write, they won’t need a ‘book report,’ because they’ve read the book too. They’ll be interested in your interpretation of the book, your sense of what is important about it.

Initially, you’ll be writing roughly every second week. You will receive a specific assignment for each paper. Our initial papers will be two pages long, later we will write longer essays. We are limiting the length not to keep you from thinking too much, but to get you to make hard editing choices about what’s really important and what’s not. Do not expect to generate a paper by sitting down, writing two pages, and handing it in. Budget your time so that you can write a draft or ‘free-write’ of maybe four pages. Put it away for a little while, and then carefully outline and edit it so that it poses an important open question, states a clear thesis, and offers a good explanation or set of arguments to support the theses. Leaving time to put the paper aside is an important step that provides you with a constructively critical perspective toward your own work. Then return to the paper and shorten it to the prescribed length by making hard editorial choices.

1. Inquiry in Christian Roots: The Standing Questions.

In Christian Roots we will always, in one way or another, be addressing one question. Because our common aim is to learn about the changing relation of the natural and social worlds—episodes of its rich history, some of its contemporary forms, something about its prospects--we will always be asking this question when we read a book, consider an idea presented by someone in a seminar discussion or lecture, or write an essay. The question of questions is, simply, So what? In Writing Groups we will draw out some of the implications of The Standing Question.

An Open Question

How do you figure out what an interesting answer is to the "So What?" question? This depends on starting with an open question, something you think matters, if only you could figure it out. Then you try to figure it out. For example: you are asked to write about Johan Huizinga’s The Autumn of the Middle Ages. You might have any one of the following open questions about these experiences.

These may or may not be interesting questions, to you; but the important point is that they’re open questions. They can not be answered with preconceived ideological formulas; they take some thinking.

2. Conclusion and Thesis

Your answer to So what? will rarely come easy--that is, if it is a well thought out answer. It will take work, and when you've got hold of it, you've got the makings of what is called, in essay writing, a thesis. In inquiry--including writing-as-inquiry--a thesis is the answer to the particular open question you have developed. It is in short your conclusion. You should not confuse conclusion in this sense with the final paragraph of the fabled five-paragraph essay. Nor should you confuse it with a table of contents of your paper on the order of "In this paper I will discuss Johan Huizinga’s view of the Middle Ages." It has to be a substantive statement, a statement with content, something that you’re convinced by your inquiry is worth the reader’s attention - something on the order of:

Renaissance, the medieval mind-set or worldview persists during the Renaissance in many forms.

Get into the habit of putting your conclusion--your thesis--into the first paragraph of your essay. Always underline or italicize or highlight your thesis. Sometimes students are afraid to offer a thesis because they're not sure it is absolutely true. You are not responsible for Absolute Truth. What you are responsible for is a non-trivial thesis statement. If your thesis statement looks so obvious that no sensible person would disagree, then it’s trivial. Instead, think of your thesis as just what it is: the result of an inquiry you've undertaken. It represents the best you can come up with now. You are open to suggestions and constructive criticism.

  1. Argument--What?

Back to "thesis" and "conclusion." To make the stew richer, add "argument." When we say that so-and-so argues X about Y, we do not mean that so-and-so only gives his or her opinions (X) about Y. What we mean when we say so-and-so argues X about Y is that so-and-so gives his or her conclusion about Y. A conclusion is much more than an opinion. Everyone has opinions, about all kinds of things. Not everyone has an argument. You can think of an argument as an opinion that you can defend with sound reasoning and ample evidence.

Above we said that in an essay the thesis is your conclusion. Exactly so. Now we should add that this conclusion is your argument. In sum, in an essay what you are doing is trying out an argument of yours. You're saying: "I think X about Y." But you're not stopping there. You're saying "I think X about Y for the following reasons and in light of the following evidence." The essay then unfolds, paragraph by paragraph, presenting those reasons and displaying and discussing that evidence.

Essays contain arguments in the sense of a set of reasons and an array of evidence aimed at getting the reader to accept, or at least consider seriously, the thesis (the main idea). Argument, in this context, doesn't mean the kind of discourse that undermines an adversary, as between lawyers or in a debate. It means an honest effort to inquire and to reach a conclusion that can be supported by evidence. The assumed context is an interpretive community, not a debating contest.

Outlining and Organization

You will find it useful to start the process of writing an essay by making an outline, and then re-outlining as you go along, up to and through final editing. Each item in the outline should be an identifying word or phrase for the topic of a paragraph (or group of paragraphs). It's often helpful to put these on the computer screen as headings (you can take them out later, if you want to, when the paper has taken its final shape). After the paper is written, you almost always have to go back and make a new outline, because the arguments and their sequence tend to change as you see the implications of working them out. Ideally, the final outline consists of a series of clear sentences, each of which is the "topic sentence" of one paragraph of the paper. This might sound mechanical, but if you read a paper that's been written this way, you are grateful for the clarity and are all the more inclined to give the argument a good hearing. Outlining and re-outlining, as aids to coherent writing, force the author to notice and cover all of the essential points. Remember that an outline tells you not only what you feel like including, but what you might have left out. When you make the final outline, if you see that you've skipped any steps that the reader might need to see in the argument, go back and cover the point that you omitted first time around.

4. Evidence

The enterprise in which we will be engaged will be interpretive. In essays (as well as in seminar discussions) we will be trying out our interpretations of the books we read. The arguments we make will be interpretive arguments--but no less rigorous for being interpretive. Indeed, owing to the nature of the evidence at the heart of our inquiry, the utmost rigor will be required.

Evidence pertinent to inquiry into community and its history and prospects is largely, if not exclusively, textual--written or oral words. The arguments, the conclusions we draw from our study of the evidence around us (and in us!) will necessarily always have a keen interpretive edge to them. We're trying to make sense of what we read and witness. This is easy only if one is content with voicing opinions and nothing more. If, on the other hand, one wishes to make arguments, then interesting and challenging work begins. Moreover, our efforts at making sense of the evidence are probably always going to be fallible: open to correction. But all this means is that interpretation just doesn't allow for unanswerable arguments. The evidence we will come upon probably will always lend itself to being viewed in different contexts and from different perspectives. In Aristotle's wise phrase, one can reach conclusions no more certain than the subject matter permits. The essayist tries to offer insightful and plausible or likely or probable interpretations, in areas that do not admit of certainty. The ability to choose good evidence--evidence that supports your argument and is plausible, even compelling in its own right--is a principal skill in essay writing.

Evidence doesn't mean heaps of quotations. You'd be wise not to quote when you can just as well paraphrase (i.e., make the same point but in your own words). Quotations take up a lot of space. Please include them only when you want the reader to see the text, so that you can go on (in the very next sentence!) to explain what the quotation means. If you don't need to explain it, you probably didn't need the quotation; you could have paraphrased!

It comes as refreshing news to students that in writing-as-inquiry you cannot lose by proving yourself wrong, because such papers automatically save themselves. Occasionally, students say they didn't really mean what they wrote; they started the paper and realized they were wrong, but were afraid to give up their original idea in fear that they "wouldn't have a paper." This is perhaps the only way to "flunk" an assignment at Evergreen: by saying something you can’t stand behind. And the irony is that whenever you prove your original viewpoint wrong, you have a first-rate paper right in front of you! The starting-point was to come up with a non-trivial thesis, a point with which someone might initially be inclined to disagree. If you can show how you yourself started with one point of view, but were forced by arguments or evidence to shift to another viewpoint, then you have a thesis that is guaranteed to be interesting!

Writing Groups

One morning each week you will meet in a Writing Group with members of your seminar and your seminar leader. You'll be meeting in a group of half your seminar, and half of this group will present papers formally every week. You'll receive constructive criticism from peers and faculty on your essays. This commentary will be valuable to you as you prepare your rewrites for the quarter. In your Writing Group, you'll take turns presenting your papers in a formal, "public speaking" way, to develop some of the skills you're bound to need in the forthcoming century. When it's your turn, you will distribute copies of your paper in class the day before your Writing Group meets. The other members Group get to read your essay overnight, think about it, and draft some constructive criticisms, which they'll bring to the Writing Group.

Papers will be due at class on Tuesday for distribution to your Wednesday Writing Group. You may want to include a short note on your paper telling your peers what kind of feedback you are seeking.

Papers will initially be two pages in length, double-spaced, in a normal (12 point) font with normal margins. Later, papers can be longer; we'll let you know when it's time. Sufficient copies for all members of your Writing Group is the rule to remember. The deadline for papers is sacred. We do not accept late papers (see credit policy in Syllabus).

In the Writing Group, we'll expect you to present your paper in a persuasive, non-stilted, natural-sounding mode, appropriate to the audience in the room. You want to speak it persuasively in your own voice, rather than read it into the record, or read it as if someone else wrote it. The task is to read it as a persuasive communication to the other people in the room. Then we'll ask you to listen and watch like a fly on the wall, not interrupting, while people consider, first, the thesis in the essay and, next, whether the thesis is plausible--that is, whether the reasons, reasoning and evidence are convincing to them. Your job is to listen carefully, take notes, absorb all the constructive criticism that you can use. Only when they've done their best with this are you invited to talk again--not to defend the paper, but to inquire with the group about how the argument might be strengthened. You will revise your essays in light of commentary you receive and your own further reflection. Keep all your originals and revisions in your portfolio. A copy of your revision will be due on the following Tuesday for your seminar leader.

When you participate in the Writing Group as a constructive critic, be civil. Constructive critics should offer their commentary on the basis of careful reading of each paper prior to the beginning of class. Papers with comments will be returned to the author. Avoid talking only about what you "liked" in the paper. Saying what you "liked" dissolves it into bits and pieces, whereas the author was (we hope) presenting an integrated point of view. And you can discuss a paper on its merits, even if you didn't "like" it. It might be a difficult but important paper, one that tells us something we may not be expecting. Again, begin by discussing the thesis--that is, the conclusion, the argument. And remember that to try on the author's argument for size, so to speak, is a respectful tribute and a real help to the person who will revise the paper. If you found the paper unconvincing, be sure to say so and to say why. This will help the author to reconsider the paper for revision. Every author should end up with some constructive advice about how to improve the paper, even if it was already nearly perfect.

Footnote on Academic Honesty

Please remember the paragraph in the Christian Roots Covenant that obliges you to give credit to others when you borrow their ideas:

In an academic community sharing, and taking responsibility for our own ideas is vital. At the same time, acknowledging our use of other people's ideas is equally important. The work we submit must reflect our own ideas. When we are incorporating the views of others, be those published authors or our seminar mates, we must acknowledge our sources. Since much of the work in this program will be collaborative and the ensuing ideas will reflect the contributions of more than one person, we must get into the habit of acknowledging the people and ideas that have influenced us.

Failure to make such acknowledgments or to present the work of others as our own is plagiarism. Any student who plagiarizes material will be asked to leave the program and may be required to leave the college. Because college policy makes the consequences of plagiarism so severe, ask your faculty members if you have any questions.

Plagiarism takes two different forms: One is to lift verbatim from someone else’s text, without putting quotation marks around the passage and citing the author. This is a simple act of copying without quotation marks and credit. The other is to change the wording and make a paraphrase, without telling the reader where you got the idea. This might be called borrowing without credit. Both are serious violations of academic honesty, and both are easily avoided. The honest thing to do is always to use quotation marks when you copy someone else’s words, and always to cite the source from which you’re deriving your material.

The easy way to cite sources is to avoid footnotes and include the citation right in the text, in parentheses. If it’s a book we’re all reading, you need only give the author’s name in the first citation, and the location in the book (e.g., Huizinga, p. 40). You might quote him, using quotation marks, as saying "Enjoyment per se was sinful." (p. 40). Long quotations - more than one sentence, or more than three lines - are single-spaced and indented (without quotation marks), to save space:

"The desire for the beautiful life is generally held to be the most characteristic feature of the Renaissance. Then we witness the greatest harmony in satisfying the thirst for beauty, equally in works of art and in life itself. … But here the line between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is too sharply drawn. The passionate desire to dress life in beauty, the refinement of the art of living, the colorful products of a life lived in imitation of an ideal are much older…."(p. 39).

Or you might paraphrase the author by saying like Europeans during the Renaissance, people during the Middle Ages sought a more beautiful life (p.39). (Anyplace you leave something out is marked with an ‘ellipsis’: three periods, plus the normal punctuation. If you do not quote the entire sentence but cut it short, then you end with four periods to indicate this omission.)

If you cite additional passages and no other book is cited in between, just refer to the new page or pages (pp. 138-39), without even putting in the author. If you change to discussing another source, give the author’s names (Arber, p. 23); when you change back to White, give his name again (Huizinga, p. 87). If you compare Huizinga to the Arber then cite them both (Huizinga, p.80; Arber, p 132.)

If you are referring to books, pamphlets web sources and the like that the class isn’t reading proceed in the same way. You should get a copy of the guideline for citation (APA Style) from the library. Remember you need to have a full bibliographic citation for each source at the end of your paper. Remember that we hope you will work to create a balance between working with other people’s ideas and crafting your own interpretations and analysis. There will be many times when we will be asked to take individual positions--in essays, research projects, and seminar discussions--and we must assert our own distinctive interpretations and judgments. The final work we do must reflect our own judgment and analysis while also recognizing the contributions of people who have influenced our learning.