October 18, 2006

Paulla Ebron: Writing Performance, Writing Ethnography

On October 10 we had the first “How I Write” conversation of the new school year with Paulla Ebron, associate professor of cultural and social anthropology.

A delightful African American woman with a sly smile and twinkling eyes, Prof. Ebron shared all sorts of insights, particularly when it comes to writing ethnographic studies.

I’ll mention a few highlights of the talk — from memory. This may be a little telegraphic, but at least some interesting points should come through.

She first became interested in writing when she saw an ad on the back of a magazine for a correspondence course on writing when she was a little girl. She sent in the coupon, but since she was very young, they wrote back to wait until she grew up a bit.

Her book Performing Africa investigates the “griots” or “jolies” of the Gambia and Senegal regions of Western Africa. These people are stroytellers, historians, singers, songwriters, gossips, matchmakers, community leaders . . . In short, very powerful, dynamic people who are very concerned about their reputations and power. Consequently, she was very concerned about what they would think about what she was saying about them. She wrote, as she put it, with all of these people in her head, with their voices constantly in her ears. She felt watched — which made the writing a slow process. Writers who feel responsible to communities often feel this — especially ethnographers who intend to show their work to the communities they investigate. This could be tough, and it could even cause a writer to get paralyzed. Still, Prof. Ebron slugged through it, slowly working out each section.

When I mentioned that she wrote with style — her writing was vivid, her descriptions palpable, and there was often a narrative flow — she shared a secret: “I went to some creative writing workshops. ” Academic writers are not supposed to be “ creative, ” at least not in the sense that they are writing fiction. But ethnography calls for description and narrative and characters — many of the elements of fiction. So, the skills involved in “creative” writing are very much a part of what is supposed to be “social science. ” This was a great relief: finally, academic writing (or at least some of it) can involve style and grace.

I also mentioned that her ending or conclusion to Performing Africa seemed unusual. In the conclusion she outlined the book and described what she did, the sort of thing that’s often done in an introduction. She said she was just following the old injunction of “tell people what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you’ve just said.”

Part of her creative writing bent was a practice that she’s engaged in over many years. She gets up in the morning and writes three or so pages of “Morning Writing.” This consists of anything that comes to mind, written by hand, sometimes illegible or garbled, other times caustic or angry or mournful — whatever. The point is that she clears her “system” every morning and she’s constantly putting herself in the writing mode. She has stacks of notebooks of these “Morning Writings.” She has them in storage. One of these days they may be useful for something — but for now they are useful for keeping her writing chops in shape.

Whenever Prof. Ebron writes a draft of an essay or book she does the first draft by hand. Like many others, she likes the way her writing (and thinking) slows down when hand-writing. But she also knows that when she sees it on the computer screen the text looks too perfect, too published-like, and that induces bouts of perfectionism. And, as we all know, perfectionism leads to paralysis.

When she does get stuck, she practices the cello. She’s just learning, so it’s much harder than writing. So, after hacking away at the strings for a while she returns to writing — and at that point it all seems much easier!

When she gets overwhelmed with many other writing assignments, such as writing letters of recommendations, and fears that she will abandon her own work, she sets an eggtimer for, say, 45 minutes to force herself to write — or even just to sit and stare at her manuscript — until the bell goes off. Bing! Time’s up, and she’s free to move on to the mundane things of life.

Hilton Obenzinger

Posted by hilton at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2006

Evidence and Style

Cathy Tio, '06, is writing an honors thesis in International Relations. She comments on the "writing rules" and style, responding to the ideas of Prof. Karl and Rev. McLennan

As someone accustomed to writing position papers for professors, I have adopted a tried-and-true method of writing that has served me rather well. This method lets the evidence speak for itself, minimizing the presence of my own voice. However, now that I am writing an honors thesis, I find myself wanting to speak more.

Professor Karl and Professor McLennan’s writing rules touch upon aspects of writing that I almost never think about. This is probably because their rules pertain to how they write rather than how they present. The writing rule that I adhere to is distinct from theirs, largely in that mine is procedural. Let me call it the Diver’s Method. When it comes to writing a research paper, I plunge right into the material, hoping to swim back up into rational coherent thought. These steps are designed to escape writer’s block, that hesitation a diver feels right before she springs into the air. I am never at a lack of words because I am literally flailing in a sea of them. Having conducted my research, with only a general topic area in mind, I usually write down all the significant arguments that various authors have made (in sentence form), separate them into various themes, and further separate them into arguments. Then, I bring order to the incoherent mess that will form the meat of my paper. By first ordering sentences within arguments into logical progression, arguments within themes, and then themes within the topic, I have written the bulk of a paper without using any of my own thoughts.

At this point in time, I have largely weakened the prospects of writer’s block because I merely have to make sense of the information that I have assembled. Only at the end, when I include a unifying thesis and cognitive transitions do I insert my own voice into the original mess. How can I increasingly incorporate my own voice into analytical writing? Will I have to abandon my favorite rule for a more top-down approach that involves establishing my thesis and then establishing the facts? If that is the case, will I be able to speak as effectively as the scholars that I so often cite? These are all questions that I am in the midst of tackling.

Posted by hilton at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2006

Writing Rules

Writing Rules -- Tricks of the Trade

Faculty are experienced researchers and writers, and they share their attitudes and techniques during “How I Write” conversations with Hilton Obenzinger. Here are two sets of rules or guidelines drawn from conversations that students may find useful in their own work.

Prof Terry Karl, Political Science

Gildred Professor in Latin American Studies and Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Studies

My first rule I call the Fidel Castro rule, and the reason I call it that is because I learned it watching him give a speech on a very, very complicated political issue. There were thousands and thousands of people listening to him, and I realized there were all sorts of people—people from the University of Havana who I happened to be with and a peasant who had looked like he came from a rural area just outside of Havana, an elderly man who had not been educated prior to the Cuban Revolution. I was looking at this wide range of people and I realized that Fidel Castro was able somehow to explain extremely complicated political phenomena that we teach courses on, and everybody in that particular space, from this range of people, understood. I never forgot that lesson, and I say to myself that it’s the “Fidel Castro How I Write” rule. And that means that we ought to be able to take in our writing and talking the most complicated things and make them understandable to all kinds of people. . . So if my writing is too complicated or I’m not expressing myself as clearly as possible, I actually think that’s my problem and not my reader’s problem . . .

My second rule is what I call the “Murder She Wrote How I Write” rule, it could be the “Law and Order How I Write” rule too, and that is, at least academic writing is not a mystery, the people who are reading what you’re saying are not supposed to wait until the end to get the surprise ending. In fact, you’re supposed to be telling them what you’re going to tell them and then giving them all kinds of signposts along the way, to say “Please come with me. I want to take you with me on this journey which happens to be whatever it is I am writing. That is actually a very difficult task, and that means I struggle most with the introductions. That is to me the roadmap of what’s coming, and once I understand the roadmap it’s easier for me to take pieces of the road. I tend to figure out the roadmap as I’m halfway down the road, which means I have to go back and change the roadmap.

Rev. Scotty McLennan, Dean for Religious Life

Up in front of me is a sheet that I put together for myself on writer’s attitude, with little personal inspirational quips, and a picture next to it—this first book I wrote which had a metaphor of climbing the spiritual mountain—of this gorgeous Himalayan mountain. So I needed those to inspire me. . . .

So they’re probably rather platitudinous, but the first one is “Live and breathe my passion.”

And the second is “Imagine I am talking to someone in my office” (because I do a lot of counseling and one-to-one work with people in my office). And I always, although I probably should be listening to the people as they speak to me, it seems I always have plenty to say in that context, so say it now on paper!

Third, I say, “Write poetry: make every word count.” And for me one of the greatest authors in terms of beauty of his writing is F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I think of The Great Gatsby, for example. It’s just this beautifully constructed piece of work. So I say here to myself “Think Fitzgerald. ”

Fourth is “Get out on the edge: take risks as you write. ”

Fifth, for me, I say, “This is the life of the spirit we are talking about here, ” and therefore I feel I need to stay in touch with that spirit and hopefully be inspiring to others.

Sixth, “Think about the audience: students and other searchers”—this was for this book Finding Your Religion— “students and other searchers on retreat, trying to change their lives. ” So, to fix the audience in mind as I’m writing.

Seventh, “Sing God’s Glory.”

Eighth, “You bore, you die.” [laughter]

And ninth, “Write from the top of my head, and the bottom of my heart.”

Posted by hilton at 03:12 PM | Comments (1)