on material

“phenomenological citation” — A scientific word for a personal story. Observational and academic writers give evidence, sources, and citations to back up their thesis. But essays are unique in that the writer is a character that matters. An essay writer needs to put themselves on the page to show that their wisdom is earned. You need stories, confe

Material: In addition to making the shiny dime explicit in the essay, it’s also grokked through supporting material (stories, anecdotes, theories, and facts). In many cases, the shiny dime is there, but it’s hiding between associated material that doesn’t quite support it. This is where we can tell them to add, cut, expand, or compress the units of

Is there a universal set of questions that can be asked to test if a writer has uncovered all the scope relative to their thesis?

3 scales of personal:

• anecdote: in a sentence;

• story: in a paragraph;

• scene: multi-paragraph;

How do you decide how deep to go in a story? It depends on how relevant each beat of the story is to your thesis. A scene is really a string of connected anecdotes, and if every beat enhances the thesis, it works. Sometimes a string of quick mentions is effec

For a thesis to feel supported it needs material, the fusion of biographical details and cultural lore. These two modes are opposites: private memories vs. public domain. (The public/private element is common in architecture.)

By supporting your thesis with biographical details, you:

• lodge yourself in the essay, making it something only you can write

The anecdotal edge:

• hard-earned wisdom

• domain expertise

• enduring obsessions

“Hunch-hucking” (phrase by Garrett Kincaid) is when you get behind and shill a flimsy theory.

Little visual anecdotes (often in the form of personal stories) are powerful ways to visually connect meaning to the main idea. For example, compare, “I was crying in the car,” with “As soon as we got onto 295 South I started crying.” The second one isn’t just more vivid, it hooks the visual into the theme of the essay (which is about moving across