Introduction: A Good Writer Thinks

Of course a good writer thinks! But thinking is not the same thing as filling your head with facts, names and dates, adding one person's opinion to a stack of others, or making your skull ring with proverbs and clichés. It means noticing relationships, raising questions, testing feelings and opinions, asking how something can be proved true.

A good writer tries to balance thinking about a subject with thinking about the approach to the subject. "Have I got the evidence I need to prove that World War I began in 1914?" (a seemingly easy question) might turn into an interesting problem if the writer asks, "What do I mean by 'began'?" "How far can I trace the war's origins?" A good writer seeks definitions of the terms he uses or is asked to use; he looks for many meanings instead of just one.

A good writer also asks about his own biases and conditioning, about the influence of popular opinion, TV, films, journalism, on his opinions. He is willing to admit that he might be wrong, and looks for ways in which he can be right without being dogmatic. He may want to say, "Of course Amherst is better than Williams," but since he knows that statement won't go unchallenged in the wider world, he says, "I prefer Amherst to Williams because it has access to a larger community," keeping in mind that unless he has visited Williams, he won't know for sure.