The mystery that writing is!

Of course, I had no idea about writing until the first term of graduate school.  I am, therefore, sympathetic towards students, in particular, who are yet to figure out how to write, especially in their own voice.  It takes time to learn to write, and then to learn to write in one's own style.

One of the many things that I had to learn right in that first term of that first year was about numbers.  Sometimes they were written out as words. Sometimes as numerals.  Nobody gave me an explanation; I observed the patterns in the publications and then decided on a practice.

Not until today did I learn something deeper about the numerals versus words when it comes to conveying numbers in the written form: "Numerals jump off the page; numbers written as words lie on the page and don’t interrupt the flow." That makes complete sense now that I think about it.  More so now in the world of electronic screen reading where we skim through paragraphs, the numbers do call our attention and essentially interrupt the flow.

But, this is also a stylistic issue; it is intended "for readers who have the leisure to savor what they read."  Ah, yes.

Over the years, I have also come to understand that writing involves a lot of re-writing.  Over and over and over again.  I routinely tell students this, but nobody seems to pay attention.  But then even academic (published) writing often comes across as if the author did not care to re-write.

If we’re speaking of a larger, more overarching mistake that writers make, it’s not taking the time to read their work aloud as they’re refining and editing it. If they did, they might easily find all sorts of errors and infelicities that they could themselves solve

Infelicities. 

I would never have worked that word into that sentence, in conveying that idea, because my vocabulary is limited.  Not that I don't know what infelicities means.  Knowing what a word means is one thing, but to know how and when to use it is different.

Two decades ago, back in California, I had writing instructors assist me in conveying to my classes the importance of writing.  One of them reminded students to be cautious when using the thesaurus in order to use big and fancy words that students often think make their papers more sophisticated.  One of the many examples that she gave was this: Consider the sentence, "their successful marriage was built on a solid foundation of love and understanding."  Basement is a synonym for foundation.  Imagine a marriage built on a basement of love!

It has been almost 32 (or thirty-two) years since that first writing experience in graduate school.  I am continuing to learn to write.