The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. Certainly schools should teach students how to write. But due to a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of literature. And so all over the country students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens. How did things get this way To answer that we have to go back almost a thousand years. Around 1100, Europe at last began to catch its breath after centuries of chaos, and once they had the luxury of curiosity they rediscovered what we call "the classics." The effect was rather as if we were visited by beings from another solar system. These earlier civilizations were so much more sophisticated that for the next several centuries the main work of European scholars, in almost every field, was to assimilate what they knew. During this period the study of ancient texts acquired great prestige. It seemed the essence of what scholars did. As European scholarship gained momentum it became less and less important; by 1350 someone who wanted to learn about science could find better teachers than Aristotle in his own era. But schools change slower than scholarship. In the 19th century the study of ancient texts was still the backbone of the curriculum. What tipped the scales, at least in the US, seems to have been the idea that professors should do research as well as teach. This idea was imported from Germany in the late 19th century. Beginning at Johns Hopkins in 1876, the new model spread rapidly. Writing was one of the casualties. Colleges had long taught English composition. But how do you do research on composition The professors who taught math could be required to do original math, the professors who taught history could be required to write scholarly articles about history, but what about the professors who taught rhetoric or composition What should they do research on The closest thing seemed to be English literature. And so in the late 19th century the teaching of writing was inherited by English professors. This had two drawbacks: (a) an expert on literature need not himself be a good writer, any more than an art historian has to be a good painter, and (b) the subject of writing now tends to be literature, since that’’s what the professor is interested in. It’’s no wonder if this seems to the student a pointless exercise, because we’’ re now three steps removed from real work: the students are imitating English professors, who are imitating classical scholars, who are merely the inheritors of a tradition growing out of what was, 700 years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. The other big difference between a real essay and the things they make you write in school is that a real essay doesn’’t take a position and then defend it. That principle, like the idea that we ought to be writing about literature, turns out to be another intellectual hangover of long forgotten origins. It’’s often mistakenly believed that medieval universities were mostly seminaries. In fact they were more law schools. And at least in our tradition lawyers are advocates, trained to take either side of an argument and make as good a case for it as they can. Whether cause or effect, this spirit pervaded early universities. The study of rhetoric, the art of arguing persuasively, was a third of the undergraduate curriculum. And after the lecture the most common form of discussion was the disputation. This is at least nominally preserved in our present-day thesis defense: most people treat the words thesis and dissertation as interchangeable, but originally, at least, a thesis was a position one took and the dissertation was the argument by which one defended it. Defending a position may be a necessary evil in a legal dispute, but it’’s not the best way to get at the truth, as I think lawyers would be the first to admit. It’’s not just that you miss subtleties this way. The real problem is that you can’’t change the question. And yet this principle is built into the very structure of the things they teach you to write in high school. The topic sentence is your thesis, chosen in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the conclusion — uh, what is the conclusion I was never sure about that in high school. It seemed as if we were just supposed to restate what we said in the first paragraph, but in different enough words that no one could tell. Why bother But when you understand the origins of this sort of "essay," you can see where the conclusion comes from. It’’s the concluding remarks to the jury. Good writing should be convincing, certainly, but it should be convincing because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job of arguing. When I give a draft of an essay to friends, there are two things I want to know: which parts bore them, and which seem unconvincing. The boring bits can usually be fixed by cutting. But I don’’t try to fix the unconvincing bits by arguing more cleverly. The sort of writing that attempts to persuade may be a valid (or at least inevitable) form, but it’’s historically inaccurate to call it an essay. An essay is something you write to try to figure something out. Figure out what You don’’t know yet. And so you can’’t begin with a thesis, because you don’’t have one, and may never have one. An essay doesn’’t begin with a statement, but with a question. In a real essay, you don’’t take a position and defend it. You notice a door that’’s ajar, and you open it and walk in to see what’’s inside. In the things you write in school you are, in theory, merely explaining yourself to the reader. In a real essay you’’ re writing for yourself. You’’ re thinking out loud. Questions aren’’t enough. An essay has to come up with answers. They don’’t always, of course. Sometimes you start with a promising question and get nowhere. But those you don’’t publish. Those are like experiments that get inconclusive results. An essay you publish ought to tell the reader something he didn’’t already know. But what you tell him doesn’’t matter, so long as it’’s interesting. I’’ m sometimes accused of meandering. In defend-a-position writing that would be a flaw. There you’’ re not concerned with truth. You already know where you’’ re going, and you want to go straight there, blustering through obstacles, and hand-waving your way across swampy ground (沼泽地). But that* s not what you’’ re trying to do in an essay. An essay is supposed to be a search for truth. It would be suspicious if it didn’’t meander. Like a river that must flow down at each step, for the essayist this translates to: flow interesting. Of all the places to go next, choose the most interesting. Of course, this doesn’’t always work. Sometimes, like a river, one runs up against a wall. Then I do the same thing the river does: backtrack. At one point in this essay I found that after following a certain thread I ran out of ideas. I had to go back seven paragraphs and start over in another direction. Fundamentally an essay is a train of thought — but a cleaned-up train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up conversation. Real thought, like real conversation, is full of false starts. It would be exhausting to read. You need to cut and fill to emphasize the central thread, like an illustrator inking over a pencil drawing. But don’’t change so much that you lose the spontaneity of the original. Err on the side of the river. An essay is not a reference work. It’’s not something you read looking for a specific answer, and feel cheated if you don’’t find it. I’’ d much rather read an essay that went off in an unexpected but interesting direction than one that plodded dutifully along a prescribed course.
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