Moving to stage two: How on earth am I supposed to do this?
Facts. Real, true pieces of information.
That’s what my writing has relied on for the longest time. As a former journalist and debater, the articles and speeches I wrote were filled with data, sources, and powerful anecdotes.
I mean, just take a look at one of my last news briefs:
The beginning paragraph- the “lede,” as we call it- is literally a single sentence loaded with so many facts that you get about 80% of the important information from that bit alone.
But the paper I’m currently working on is a curveball for me. “How?” I thought to myself. “How can I possibly write a substatial argument with only two additional outside sources?”
To my surprise, I managed it. Much of the argumentation and content that ended up in my second draft came from common sense and my general knowledge, thus requiring no facts. While I would have liked to have substantiated my assertions with additional solid facts, the constraint on sources has forced me to craft my words more carefully; when you’re forced to rely on rhetorical ability to persuade others instead of cold facts, it gives your writing a different dimension. To me, my writing felt more alive, like it was invigorated because I had poured my own thoughts and effort into it, rather than simply explain away facts.
I found that “strawman” fallacies are difficult to avoid. It’s difficult to combat viewpoints which can come at you from every conceivable angle. In the realm of technology, because everyone has a different viewpoint, it’s easy to unwittingly setting up a strawman fallacy that people can just push over.
And that brings me back to my point about evidence vs. rhetoric. I learned how important a proper balance is- rhetoric without evidence is ineffective, but evidence without compassion and emotion to blend the information together is simply overwhelming. This also helped me to break from the terse writing style of journalism, where “paragraphs” can comprise of a single sentence. The only reason I wrote like that for the newspaper was because the content was supposed to be unbiased and fact-oriented. But through writing the second draft, I remembered how to make my words flow again.
