Outlining is something I always had done, but I think for me I eventually would “internalize” a form, be it essay or whatever. That is why Boice, though adamant about pre-writing, does mention that this process can easily turn into procrastination and infinite deferral. After all, I have had times where in revising a paper I wanted to shoe-horn a million citations and ideas, thus never getting to the point or a clear expression.
On page 56 I was a bit worried on how we limit the prewriting phase after he tells us to
“Put all notes into a standardized format with the source
fully listed at the top. Enter classification codes at the top of each page to
permit easy indexing. And, make copies (via photocopying or printing from
microprocessors) of your note-pages so that you can carry collections with you
for reading and annotating during free time”
And going on to number 7 he continues:
“File collections according to categories that prove most
inclusive and useful… [i]f new material cannot be incorporated, file labels
might need expanding; if… materials fit commonly fit in more than one category,
the categories may be too indiscriminate; if resulting subcollections do not
suggest new ways of…”
I think by now you get the point. What I wrote in the margins
to these “Stepwise Exercises for Facilitating the Imagination” is the response:
“Hire a personal secretary!” Admittedly, I was being ungenerous to Boice’s
ideas. In fact I have found myself utilizing a short-hand and filing system of
my own. In other, less formal terms, I was developing what Boice prescribed out
of practical need. So while Boice gives us a daunting list, a personal bureaucracy,
it really can be figured into a personal system that helps one navigate the
information explosion and the conversations many of us will be weighted with
the next two years. But I will not be timid in stating that my original
impression of how he got his ideas across (rather than the ideas themselves)
wasn’t to simply take it at face-value.
I think in reading Boice critically and not just
saying “Oh yes it helps and is perfect” (thinking: “will I get a bad grade if I
disagree? Will I be shunned by my writer peers?”)—questioning and dialoging
with Boice’s text— follows more closely what Boice is getting at, in terms of
the note-taking and dialogical processes of writing. However, when I try to deny
his claims or am off-put by his mechanical approach, I do remember he is
proceeding in a way that is not about content, but addressing instead form and
process. So I accept his advice like tools. The metaphor that came to mind was building a launchpad. I certainly will have to use outlines more formalistically. They give a
paper backbone. And Boice is right that imagination can be cultivated and put
to effective use through practice. I think this is a big part why we’re in our
field in the first place.
I totally agreed with Rodger’s views on reflection. But as
an English Major, I must say I am suspicious of the statement
“though the experiences that befall us may be out of our
control, the meaning that we make of them is not” (Rodgers 849).
I’m not disagreeing, but in reading it some note of
uncertainty went off inside me. However, I do know that this claim, though here casually
made, is a highly contested one in some circles many of us might’ve already
encountered (literary theory or otherwise). In spite of this very minor
quibble, I did like the particular discernment between “reaction” and “response”
(Rodgers 855), the latter being the result of reflective thought. I
have read some Dewey and really had some disagreements with his general views ("what is true is what is most useful" etc.). He is
quoted as saying human beings are “normally not divided into two parts, the one
emotional, the other coldly intellectual” (in Rodgers 858). There is some
recent cognitive science that says otherwise, but he wrote it in 1933, before
such theories (mental modularity etc.) were available.
I think that Rian makes a really good point here - my first reaction to every new rule that Boice introduces is to cringe, throw the printout on the ground, and kick it under my desk, never to be seen again. When I begin to reflect on my own process of writing, though, I realize that I am already doing much of what Boice is saying, except in a less organized and structured manner. Being aware of doing such things and trying to always make them a part of my writing routine is the key, I am slowly realizing, to Boice's "enjoyable" and more successful writing.
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