The Nonfiction Trade-Off

Nonfiction is harder to write than fiction. Nonfiction writers often receive far less attention than fiction writers despite the former’s more demanding constraints. A quick online search can prove it: The first five writers to appear after searching "famous writers" are Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and William Shakespeare. Each of these writers is most widely recognized for their fictional works.

Don’t be fooled. My claim is not an example of a credible cause and effect relationship. After all, there’s no evidence to support it. Although it's engaging and probably grabbed your attention, it's also inaccurate. Nonfiction writers are constantly faced with this same situation: sacrificing accuracy for the sake of popularity. Itiis hard to write nonfiction because the narrative doesn't always occur in the most appealing way to readers. On the other hand, fiction writers have complete control over their narratives, choosing and changing any restrictions or constraints they want to place on their writing. Narratives in fiction can occur exactly as the writer wants. The prevailing narrative in a work of nonfiction very well may not occur in the most convenient or appealing way. This is particularly relevant when we look and journalism and current events reporting.

Journalists are caught in the predicament of accuracy, responsible for both engaging their audiences while also maintaining credible evidence, data, and facts. What emerges is a blurred line between opinions and falsehoods, and it's most visible when writers try to speculate unknown information.

Trump created the Fake News Awards to draw attention to inaccurate news stories. The awarded authors and their pieces highlight the thin line nonfiction writers have to walk. Take Paul Krugman's op-ed article in the New York Times, the Fake News Awards’ first place winner. The central point of Krugman's article was this: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” Although an opinion piece, many people took the statement made by a Nobel Prize winner in economics as true. In Krugman’s case, his speculation turned out to be completely wrong: financial markets reached record highs within Trump's first year. That begs the question as to whether journalism should be considered nonfiction writing. Maybe a new category of writing could better clarify the lines between unbiased factual writing and biased speculative writing.

Preconceptions are not accurate. Whether or not it's the writer or audience’s responsibility to make this distinction remains unanswered. When journalist venture into nonfiction book writing, the underlying source of this question becomes apparent: the tradeoff between accuracy and popularity.

Nonfiction books are often subject to controversial inaccuracies, most often seen in quasi-scientific journalistic works. Malcolm Gladwell is perhaps the most notable author whose work faces widespread criticism as a result of inaccurate conclusions. In his book Outliers, Gladwell asserts a “10,000 Hour Rule”, claiming that achieving mastery or expertise in an activity requires 10,000 hours of practice. Yet, the authors of the study in which Gladwell asserts his rule have stated that his interpretation was an inaccurate depiction of their own data. In one of his more recent books, David and Goliath, Gladwell cites a psychology experiment to prove his theory of “desirable difficulties”, being certain serious challenges that are actually advantageous and cause positive outcomes.

The experiment Gladwell cited was a study of forty Princeton students tasked with solving math problems in easy-to-read or hard-to-read fonts, in which those given harder fonts performed better. A conclusion of this sort barely holds scientific merit or credibility with such lackluster and weak sources. Gladwell, however, is not the only nonfiction author with inaccurate assertions.

Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s renowned book Freakonomics, which peaked at number two on the new york times’ nonfiction best-sellers list, was heavily criticized upon release for claiming that the legalization of abortion led to a fifty percent reduction in crime rates during the 1990s. Two Federal Reserve bank economists published a paper exposing the Freakonomics authors for the omitted variable bias, which led to their inaccurate conclusion. With the variables accounted for, it turns out that abortion actually led to an increase in the crime rates, the exact opposite of what Dubner and Levitt had originally claimed.

The Economist stated of Freakonomics’ inaccuracies, “for someone of Mr. Levitt's iconoclasm and ingenuity, technical ineptitude is a much graver charge than moral turpitude. To be politically incorrect is one thing; to be simply incorrect quite another." Even highly-regarded economist and journalist authors are subject to nonfiction constraints. The evidence and data told one narrative, but the authors chose inaccuracy in order to tell a “better” narrative. The same question arises as to whether the works similar to those of Gladwell, Levitt, and Dubner should be listed as nonfiction. Gladwell supposes that his work “is not going to be as rigorous and as carefully argued and complete as an academic work, because [it’s] popular non-fiction”. Although aware of his works’ complicated status, Gladwell is illogical to conclude that falsely-supported and inaccurate statements can be the basis of nonfiction.

Lack of Interest = Lack of Power

What makes a good piece of writing? I say, you need to have an interest in what you are writing. In a truly perfect world, everyone would be able to write what they (he/she/they) would like to. The pieces of writing that are most memorable are usually speeches from writing that come from activists writing about what they believe in or authors turning what they have always dreamed about writing into reality. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (King, “I Have A Dream”). This is an extremely famous quote, not only because of the power behind the movement Dr. King was fighting for, but for the eloquence of it and the speech as a whole. King was able to deliver such a speech, and several other similar speeches in his lifetime, due to his true passion for the cause he was fighting for. This is truly not the case in several cases, due to the fact that passion and interest are not always present.
Non fiction is found difficult in several scenarios, because of the several restrictions in how one is able to write and what one can write about. This piece in particular, proposed for an EN300 class, one can imagine, I did not receive in huge smiles and open arms. The limits on the kind of language we  it even more challenging. When a certain level of interest is present, the flow of ideas and engaging questions is more easily accomplished. Viewpoints are more eagerly shared, and the willingness to educate is higher. Despite this, in certain situations, writers have to be pushed out of their comfort zone to become more expressive and well-rounded writers. So find your interests, and go write! Or even more exciting, challenge yourself, and go write!

Non Fiction Writing: The Art of Captivation

So your teacher just assigned you an essay on a topic you are confident no one would ever be interested in reading. How can you possibly make a quality essay on a topic so boring? Let me help you out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While many students believe that the topic of a nonfiction essay determines its quality, they (he, she, they) often fail to see what may be just as important: knowing their intended audience and how to captivate them to read on.  If the reader cannot understand the essay or the simplicity of the writing bores them, they will stop reading and move on, even if originally interested in the topic of the essay. For this reason, the choices the writer makes in diction, structure, style, etc. should be regarded with equal importance to the topic.  So, this essay will discuss how to captivate the desired audience of any nonfictional writing piece to help you get an A on this essay even with such a lifeless essay. When it comes to deciding a writing style, punctuation is often the most overlooked tool.  Yet, punctuation alone can change both meaning and feeling of a sentence. Understanding the effect on meaning is simple; it can change “A woman, without her man, is nothing” to “A woman: without her, man is nothing”. Similarly:

Changing the feeling to captivate an audience with punctuation is a little more strategic. Dashes, for example, can be used to give the reader a feeling of knowing the writer’s inside thoughts. For instance, dashes can be added to the sentence “While the Monster was a horrendous sight, he was judged solely on his appearance and not on his personality or intentions,” to make it feel more intimate: “The monster was judged solely on his appearance - granted, it was a horrendous sight - but not by his personality or intentions” (Antunez, “Frankenstein Essay”).  Here, the dashes intentionally stop the flow of the sentence to insert the writer’s thoughts.                                                                      Colons are another type of punctuation worth mentioning; they can add importance or stress to a phrase. Given the sentence “People who are oppressed have very little power; however, the ability to speak is one important capability they do have,” one can stress this ability to speak with the use of a colon: “People who are oppressed have very little power; however, they do have one important capability: the ability to speak” (Antunez, “The Power of Speech”). On the other hand, punctuation can also make reading numbers and statistics more bearable. For instance, take the sentence “Over thirty-eight million people died in World War I, sixty million people died in World War II, and unemployment reached twenty-five percent in the United States during the Great Depression.”  Compared to the sentence “Over 38 million people died in World War I, 60 million people died in World War II, and unemployment reached 25% in the United States during the Great Depression” (Antunez, “Conflicts of the Early 20th Century”), the numbers in the latter stand out more and are easier to identify than in the former.  Undoubtedly, knowing how to effectively use punctuation allows the writer to create a style that captivates his or her intended audience.

For most readers, a writer is only credible if they can quote their evidence for the reader to analyze for themselves.  Therefore, expertly inserting quotations is essential to captivating many audiences. A simple technique is using a quotation to continue the explanation, validating and stating a claim at the same time.  For example, “In the first millennium, Russia was inhabited by a large group of tribes. ‘After years of subjugation by Vikings of the north, the region’s tribes revolted and drove back the Northmen’” (Antunez, “Byzantine Influence on Russia”).  The next approach uses pieces of quotations to show specific words or phrases that support the claim. The sentence, “However, when Felix’s plan was discovered, he and his family were condemned ‘to a perpetual exile from their native country’” (Antunez, “Frankenstein Essay”) uses the phrasing of the novel to show the exact punishment Felix received.  The writer can now prove their claim while keeping the reader engaged because the reader will know the punishment that is being referred to. Now the final way of inserting a quotation has to do with punctuation, but its effectiveness is worth re-discussing. The colon is an easy way to make a claim and then insert a supporting quote: “Although Roy knew Harriet only from the train ride, he unquestionably wanted to sleep with her: ‘ Now if only he had her in bed’” (Antunez, “The Natural Essay”).  Notice how the supporting quote was introduced with a colon, while the quote itself used a colon to introduce a supporting quote. Trippy.

The last few tips are perhaps the most directly connected to the captivation of an audience.  To begin is the use of personal pronouns. Most of the time, using personal pronouns make the writing less formal but don’t take away from the proving of one’s claim.  However, sometimes the credibility of an argument is lost when claims are made as opinions instead of in statement form. For example, the sentence, “However, I personally do not believe that these tools alone would keep a person alive in a world such as the one described in Station Eleven” (Antunez, “Station Eleven Assignment”) is less convincing than “However, these tools alone would not keep a person alive in the world of Station Eleven.”  Another strategy for captivating your audience is varying sentence length to avoid beginning to sound monotonous: “For Jaja’s whole life, he has been told what to do by Papa, but in this scene, Jaja makes his own decision and Papa eventually agrees.  Change is evident” (Antunez, “The Power of Speech”). Always using short sentences will make your writing choppy while always using long sentences will bore the reader and can be a little difficult for some audiences to read. Difficulty and the reader’s level of knowledge are the final components to keep in mind.  Depending on the intended audience, it may or may not be a good idea to go into detail about a concept: “The Byzantines practiced caesaropapism, a ‘political system in which the head of the state is also the head of the church and supreme judge in religious matters’” (Antunez, “Byzantine Influence on Russia”). If this sentence is used in a piece of writing for experts in political systems, this explanation may be unnecessary and they may become unengaged.  However, if the intended audience is the general public, leaving out the definition of caesaropapism would leave many confused and unwilling to read further. Again, all about knowing the intended audience.

          

Of course, captivating the intended audience means knowing which of these tools or styles would keep them engaged. Using dashes makes the writing more informal which may not be effective when writing a report for a researcher or professor. However, using colons would give a formal tone that may turn away a younger reader who simply wants to understand the basics of a concept. This consideration should be just as important as the topic when trying to write quality non-fiction.

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Now that you know different tools for captivating your audience, it is time for you to determine who your audience is. Knowing this will make your writing, at the very least, bearable, but more likely captivating and engaging for the reader. Good luck!

Thesis is gold

Thesis is Gold

A English Essay by William Wu

Thesis has the most important role in any non-fiction literature work. Perhaps it’s the most struggling part of your term-end paper. However, a thesis is important. Writers give life to the article by declaring the thesis. Like the mast on a sailing ship, thesis may not look look the best, but it direct fancy technics to the article into a clear direction. Additionally, a good thesis also clears readers’ questions in mind, because after all, readers read to find solutions. Non-fiction writers will improve their writings dramatically if they have a clear and coherent thesis to guide their work (Ding Ding Ding this is my thesis guys).

Because readers read for seeking information, a good thesis provides a clear answer to the questions the readers may have. With the rapid development of technology and the boom of information, the young generation read with the mindset of hunting for information. Students, for instance, hunt down reading materials from Google to suit their need of knowledge. Writers write to spread knowledge and share opinions. To expedite especially the endeavor from the younger generation, it’s utmost important for writers to provide clear thesis serving as answers to prompts. Weblogs shows the importance of an thesis excellently when it comes to presenting information swiftly and clearly to the reader. Two websites going to be compared in terms of their thesis and their corresponding effectiveness of providing answers.

Taking a personal example, I recently fell in love with Drone Hobby. Being a complete noob of the hobby, I scrutinized the internet, searching for useful information. In the process of information hunting, I came to realize the effectiveness of a well-built thesis. The first website provided a extremely clear thesis explaning the definition of “FPV Flying”: FPV or First Person View is the most unique experience of interacting with your aircraft through a level of immersion that is unparalleled by anything short of virtual reality (A Beginner’s Guide to FPV, https://www.getfpv.com/learn/new-to-fpv/fpv-beginner-guide/). The clear thesis in the article, presented in the first sentence, gave me a clear overview to the hobby. To a complete noob like me, the introductory thesis of this article immediately demystifies the topic the readers search for. On the other hand, a vague thesis, or not having a thesis at all, disrupt the article from providing answers to questions. The author showed no clear thesis. His article starts with “I’ve been building and flying FPV multirotors for several years...” (Racing Quadcopters – an Intro to FPV Quacopter Racing, https://www.dronethusiast.com/introduction-to-fpv-racing-and-mini-quadcopters/). The lack of thesis provided no answer to my question of what is fpv drone racing. Thus the article fails to presents useful information to my needs.

Besides presenting clear information on the matter discussed by the writing piece, a good thesis enables the writer to develop focus throughout his piece, and throughout a paragraph. As the first thing read by the readers, thesis serves a similar function as the topic of an article. Reading the topic sentence of an article gives the readers a general overview of the article. Likewise, building the thesis first can expedite the writing process by assigning a “target.” Thesis lines out the basic ideas to the writer, making them stay on the topic and present relevant information and avoid irrelevant junk information. Presenting a clear thesis, however, is like shooting an arrow to a big target. With the clear topic sentence lined up for the writer, he or she would know the exact information to write about and look for as suggested in the thesis. On the contrast, having a vague thesis would confuse the author, as the thesis itself presents no clear direction relevant information.

I am preparing for the AP test recently, and thesis, again, catches my attention. I was working on this prompt: “Analyze the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration to the problems of the Great Depression. How effective were these responses? How did they change the role of the federal government.” A clear thesis such as this one, “In response to the economic crisis caused by the depression, FDR launched his campaign of “New Deals,” a social reform with a package of Bills, Social Agencies and Acts that effectively provided short-term economic relief and transformed the federal government into an economy and social well-being regulator” is the model thesis. It listed out exact informations responding to the topic. This thesis outlines specifics such as the kinds of problems in during the great depression, and it lists out the exact solutions to the depressions. It was clear and it presented a well-written guide to my paper, and I was able to finish my essay in a swift fashion using my thesis as a guide. So, a word of advice guys, make a thesis before you write anything. It will help so much.

Non-Fiction Writing: It's Pretty Important

Non-Fiction Writing: It's Pretty Important

Non-fiction writing may not be a thrill ride like The Da Vinci Code or a Stephen King novel, but it moves us forward intellectually. The newspaper is a type of non-fiction writing that informs readers about a variety of topics. It’s not supposed to be entertaining, but it can be, because good writers engage their audiences and make them want more. Investigative journalism fascinates people, because it reads like fiction yet tells real stories. Opinion articles represent writers’ thoughts on real world issues, and a well-written op-ed can often lead to compelling debates. Historical texts give us a look back at those who came before us, and scholars interpret history in many different ways. All these genres are connected by being truthful (though oftentimes biased), but they all tell different stories and take different shapes. Works from all these mediums contain intrigue, versatility, and societal significance. Good non-fiction writing is informative and brings us forward as a society, but also engages readers and makes them want more.

From analytical pieces to news reports about the economy and politics, non-fiction writing is truly essential. Many non-fiction pieces are based off of a claim. If a claim is debatable, it’s a good claim: if not, you gotta go back to the drawing board. Writing that “Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” have a connection, (because) both are about death and the person who is responsible not understanding their own actions (Barnett, “AmLit Songs”), is a debatable claim. History and scholars’ claims about history are always being debated; historians spend their lives developing opinions on time periods and educating others about them. History is essential because “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” A discussion of debatable works also gives people new perspectives. When debaters include personal experiences in their arguments, people learn more about the lives of others and become more understanding--all of this drives us forward. Non-fiction is informative, it teaches us about what we do not know, and keeps us updated on what’s going on.

Non-fiction writings’ importance is clear, but people underestimate how engaging it can be. Books like Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers are non-fictional, but they are engaging because they look at economics in a new way. The book includes chapter names such as “what do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?” (Freakonomics) and “Rice paddies and math tests” (Outliers). These books became famous because they bring something new to the table and are unique. The first paragraph discussed how important nonfiction writing is in educating society, and ideas like the ones in Freakonomics and Outliers do just that. Every author has a platform, and if they can engage people with their writing, their opinions or theories will be discussed. Non-fiction writers do not need to create Hogwarts when they write, but they, like Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Levitt, need to be inventive and original in their ideas. Their voice and tone must be unique or else no one will be interested in their writing. A well-written article accomplishes this and makes the reader want to further explore the topic after they are done reading.

Steven Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, authors of Freakonomics https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stephen-dubner-and-steven-levitt-we-love-your-mr-cameron-hes-a-monster-freak-5hfvnbcjcck  

Every time you read quality writing, you’re getting smarter. The advances we have made in science and technology all started with someone reading about their time’s improvements and deciding they could make something better than that. People who change the world are often informed, they know about what’s going on so they know what they want to change. All of this begins with reading non-fiction writing. Not everyone can be Elon Musk or Bill Gates, but if you dedicate yourself to growing intellectually and teach others, the world will become a better place. Every well regarded non-fiction piece is different, and you learn new things or see ideas from a different angle each time you read something new, that’s the beauty of it.

Bill Gates: Big time non-fiction reader
https://twitter.com/billgates 

Are there qualities of nonfiction make it naturally better than fiction?

Are there qualities of nonfiction make it naturally better than fiction?

The question of whether or not it is possible to decisively say nonfiction is better than fiction seems impossible. The type of writing in nonfiction and fiction are distinctly different, however, is there something about the nature of their composition that makes one naturally better than the other? Well, let’s see.
Before we answer which is better, we should probably figure out what are the qualities that separate good writing from the rest of the pack. To produce writing that people want to read, a writer must be skilled with diction and syntax, must confront the reader with compelling ideas, and must root their work in truth.

The ultimate goal of fiction is, arguably, to be engaging.  Writers tell stories about emotion and empathy while balancing a fine line to also being engaging. This is all good except for one thing- it isn’t true. See, nonfiction conveys an unparalleled level of truth as it deals with the infinitely complex nature of reality. It is a common adage that history repeats itself. So being in the spotling of being able to make a change in the world around us, wouldn’t it be obvious that we should learn from past behavior?

A personal account of a backpacking trip might run “With no previous backpacking knowledge, I had a lot to learn to get up to pace. ... When the trip was nearing an end, I was chosen as a leader to map out and guide my group of six for the last four days. ... Although I wasn’t always able to find success, this expedition turned out to be the best experience of my life. I learned to be empathetic and supportive. Most importantly I learned the value of teamwork.” (Fang) This account follows the progress of the writer through a difficult excursion. Because it is told in the first person and draws directly on the writer’s experiences, it is convincing and impressive. This story however, can easily been made up and were it falsified by someone who had never been on such a trip, it would lack the detail and sincerity that make it effective.