The Wadsworth Constant says that you can safely skip the first 30% of anything you see online.

I worked in the Writing Center in college, and whenever a student came in with an essay, we were supposed to make sure it had two things: an argument (“thesis”) and a reason to make that argument (“motive”). Everybody understood what a “thesis” is, whether or not they actually had one. But nobody understood “motive”. If I asked a student why they... See more

This is why it’s very difficult to teach people how to write, because first you have to teach them how to care. Or, really, you have to show them how to channel their caring, because they already care a lot, but they don’t know how to turn that into words, or they don’t see why they should.

understood

Most of the students who came into the Writing Center thought the problem with their essay was located somewhere between their forehead and the paper in front of them. That is, they assumed their thinking was fine, but they were stuck on this last, annoying, arbitrary step where they have to find the right words for the contents of their minds.

But... See more

All writing about despair is ultimately insincere. Putting fingers to keys or pen to paper is secretly an act of hope, however faint—hope that someone will read your words, hope that someone will understand. Someone who truly feelsdespair wouldn’t bother to tell anyone about it because they wouldn’t expect it to do anything. All text produced in... See more

All emotions are useful for writing except for bitterness .

Good writing requires the consideration of other minds—after all, words only mean something when another mind decodes them. But bitterness can consider only itself. It demands sympathy but refuses to return it, sucks up oxygen and produces only carbon dioxide. It’s like sadness, but stuck... See more

Most of the students who came into the Writing Center thought the problem with their essay was located somewhere between their forehead and the paper in front of them. That is, they assumed their thinking was fine, but they were stuck on this last, annoying, arbitrary step where they have to find the right words for the contents of their minds.

But... See more

Most writing is bad because it’s missing a motive. It feels dead because it hasn’t found its reason to live. You can’t accomplish a goal without having one in the first place—writing without a motive is like declaring war on no one in particular.