Wednesday, September 15th, 2004
Paul Graham gives a great answer to the question, “How do you write a quality essay?”
A sample to wet your appetite:
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.
With the result that writing is made to seem boring and
pointless. Who cares about symbolism in Dickens? Dickens
himself would be more interested in an essay about color
or baseball.
