Arcane Mutterings

A few hours ago I sent in my first assignment for my master’s program. It was a short essay. In fact, it could be compared in length to one of my blog entries. In many ways that’s where the comparison ends; for the simple reason that the university essay is a completely different animal from the blog entry.

Psychology claims to be a science (is it? I’m not sure) and therefore requires a great deal of precision. The problem with precision, however, is that it means that terms and expressions should vary as little as possible. This can make the average university essay a rather dull affair.

This point is being rather admirably driven home by the reading I’m being asked to do. I will immediately say, in the readings defence, that the more recent articles seem much more interesting; though whether this is because they actually are more interesting, or because I’m getting used to the format is not clear.

The danger I see now is that my writing here will be influenced by my reading there. I’m hoping I can separate the two; because quite frankly I abhor the tendency to try to write so cleverly that your writing becomes almost unintelligible and this is something that I’ve long accused scientists of. Of course, there are a number of reasons why they might do this. The first is that they aren’t very good writers (which is very possible, since writing is only one of the skills that a scientists should possess and not one of the most vital ones at that). The second is that they write the way they do because they think it is actually perfectly clear. A third reason I have only just discovered is that they do it because they don’t see writing like I do. Perhaps they see it more as mathematical prose.

I’ve realised (largely through an article that I just read) that I’m going to have to learn an entirely new set of skills and – possibly more importantly – a new set of values. Entertainment, for example, is not very high at all on the list of important things to consider when writing scientifically.

I think that’s a shame, but I can understand why. If you want to be entertained, you don’t read science, you read science when you want to be enlightened.

So once I’ve learned to write to enlighten (or maybe just convince) can I still write to entertain? Well, the thing is – I think that a piece of writing is far more enlightening (or should I say convincing?) when it is also entertaining. For one thing, you manage to keep your audience far more present and attentive. After all, you need your audience to be attentive in order for them to be convinced of anything you propose.

So in my quest to learn how to write enlighteningly (oooh… five syllables – university’s working!) I should never lose sight of my attempts to entertain. Losing the latter will negatively affect my ability to do the former.

Or, in plain English, if nobody’s going to read what I write, who cares what I’ve got to say?