STEP 2: THINKING FOR AN ESSAY
“But,” I hear you crying, “I don’t have time to get in the habit. I have an essay due in a week, and I want to get a high grade on that.”
Fair enough. In that case, the way to start is by considering what you think about your topic.
It may be that you’ve been given a topic, or a question. If that’s the case, begin by doing what I suggested earlier, in the section Performing Research: Ask yourself, what do you believe about the question or topic? Write that down briefly, and also try to articulate why you believe it (this may involve writing down or referring to parts of the text, concept, or event you’re writing about. Go ahead. It’s always good to have as much evidence as possible, even when you’re only at this thinking stage).
If you’ve been asked to come up with your own topic or question, just Play the Why? Game. In fact, you can play the Why? Game with an assigned topic or question, too, and the good news is that it often results in your feeing more invested in what you end up writing about.
If you feel that you don’t yet know what you think, that’s fine. It’s hard to have an opinion about something (a poem, a book, a concept) that you’re dealing with for the first time. This is where research will help you. The trick, however, is not to let the research do your thinking for you. Instead, you do some thinking about the research.
There’s a tendency to believe that published writings must be correct. If it’s in print, it’s gotta be true, right? But in fact the answer to that question is, No. Unless you are dealing with hard fact, much of what’s printed is interpretation (of data, of events, of texts…). This means that there can be alternative interpretations; it means that new evidence can produce new interpretations, and that new readers.
As you proceed to read your research, give yourself permission to question your sources. Do they seem plausible? Why or why not? Do their interpretations (of events, of data, of texts) stand up for you? Why or why not? What would you say, instead; what argument would you make? This way of reading is called “active reading.” You may also know it as “critical thinking”: the ability to evaluate information and arguments, to test them before you believe them.
After you read a few sources this way, you’ll notice that you have a stance. Asking – and, more importantly, answering – all those questions about your sources has forced you to consider your topic, and it’s probably made you think about it more closely and carefully than you had done before. Try asking yourself now what you think about your topic, what points you’d like to make.
This brings us to two possible problems. The first could be called the Problem of Completeness. But, you might be thinking, huge amounts have already been published on this topic. I saw all the sources in the databases. What can I possibly add? Everything’s already been said!
A perfectly reasonable feeling. But the truth is, everything hasn’t been said, because new eyes see new things. Every generation of new thinkers makes new discoveries and sees information – even very old information – in new ways. Consider all the changes in thinking our cultures have experienced in just the past few years! We have all sorts of new information, new considerations, new awarenesses available to us. There’s plenty left to be said, and you are just as likely to say it as anybody else.
The second problem could be called the Problem of Inadequacy. But, you might be thinking, the people I’m reading have years of experience and training. They’ve read all sorts of stuff that I haven’t, and they know how to Do This Thing. Who am I, a student, to disagree with them?
Again, perfectly reasonable feelings. I’m going to tell you a secret, though: everyone feels inadequate. The world of universities and thought is like a ladder. As people learn and think more, they climb up another rung or two. But there’s always someone on the rung ahead, someone for them to feel inferior to. And the person on the rung ahead feels inferior to the person ahead of them. This goes on until you get to the person the top rung of the ladder – and that person feels inadequate because they worry that their thinking isn’t as fresh and new as that of the people at the bottom of the ladder. In addition, it’s worth bearing in mind that everyone you read who is considered an “authority” on a subject once was not an authority at all. Once, they were a beginner.
You also might be worried that what you have to say may not be original, or may not be up to the level of those you’ve read, even if it is original. I can’t dismiss these worries, because you might be right. What I can do, though, is tell you that no one you write an essay for is expecting you to have original, paradigm-shattering, ideas right from the start. They want to see that you’re thinking for yourself: they want to see that the gears are turning, producing thought (that’s the real meaning of original here: you were the originator of an idea). As you progress, you build on those skills, and your thought becomes more original in the sense of unique.
