From My Insult to "Twitter Instructions"

Chojiro recommends anyone interested in writing to read the following essay by Mr Lin Yuet-tsang (練乙錚), Chief Editor of Hong Kong Economic Journal (HKEJ). Before taking up his current position at HKEJ, Mr Lin served as consultant of the Central Policy Unit (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government) and lecturer on economics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

I discussed language learning on weekends in the last month or so. The last two topics were, respectively, reading extensively and reading intensively. Today, I would like to talk about writing.

Writing is difficult. From 1985, I began my life in professional economic research. At the end of the year, I submitted my first paper, written without any direction from instructors to the American Economic Review (AER) for assessment. Thereafter, I spent almost two years arguing with three reviewers. The paper was finally accepted, but the editor-in-chief asked me to revise my essay according to the instruction of the last reviewer. The reviewer had this comment: “This guy absolutely does not know how to write. Redundancies in the essay have no relevance to the theme. I suggest deleting eighty percent of the essay before publishing it.” I was not convinced, but I could not say anything. The long, twenty odd page paper was reduced to six pages on publication. However, I calmed down after the essay was published. Looking at it again, I realized that shorter was better. In scientific research, the essence should be conveyed in fewer words.

I loved writing since middle school. I wrote diaries, journals, stories, essays and “poems” at will. Among all my classmates at school, I was the one who used up my essay pad soonest. Mass production did not assure high quality. In terms of content, I often imitated those ex-curricula books I read. They were filled with misused words. The more I wrote, the more mistakes I made. The teacher shook his head reading them. Later I knew quantity was important. As in reading, apart from reading intensively, you have to write extensively. The training I gave myself in Form 3 was to write extensively. It was at senior high school that I became consciously aware of the need to practice writing intensively apart from writing extensively. My English teacher in Form 4 was an Irish priest. He knew very well how to teach writing, and he was wholeheartedly at it. We had to submit essays to him at 9 o’clock in the morning twice a week . He was able to correct and return all our work to us before recess at 11 o’clock. There were comments in red ink all over the place. He not only corrected your mistakes, he gave you ideas on improvement. For those sentences and paragraphs that were really bad and could not be revised, he would ask you to rewrite them. After revision he would fix your work again. We had to copy the sentences corrected by him one more time for him to see. Students would be naturally active with an energetic teacher like that. I dedicated myself to writing intensively that year. Gradually, I learned that you have to “plan and organize” when you write essays.

Although I majored in mathematics and science in university, I did not give up writing. I took two courses in writing and I was especially impressed by what I learned in the second course. We mainly learned how to write sentences during the ten weeks. From easy ones to hard ones, we made various kinds of sentences. The professor gave a topic in class, and the students wrote their sentences immediately. The sentences were then copied on the blackboard for everyone to criticize, with the professor giving his opinion at the end. Those were small class instructions. In every class you could only write three or four sentences and critique on one or two. It did not seem economical but it was really good training. (Readers who are interested can try writing a sentence to describe the style, movement, sight and sound of the tonearm of a long-play record moving into the centre track after the record has been played.)

You apply what you learn. I learned writing intermittently for many years. What I had learned became useful right after my graduation from university. I returned to Hong Kong in 1972 and taught at a secondary school. In my spare time I started a biweekly for secondary school students with my friends. The contents were healthy and righteous. They promoted understanding China and caring about society. Each issue had more than ten pages. The diverse contents included literature, scientific and technological knowledge, movie reviews, jokes, interviews, examination tips etc. Literally everything was covered. At first there were many contributors but later most of the essays were “contracted” by several amateur editors like me. We used different pen names. Each of us wrote several thousand words per issue and we never failed to publish one. We struggled for seven or eight years that way until the publication exhausted its resources. Writing in those several years was not only extensive and intensive, it was desperate. One or two days before each issue was published, everyone would crowd in the typesetting company, revising while writing to meet the “deadline” which kept being extended. This was really another kind of training. Even so, I received that AER “insult” later. It shows that writing, to me at least, is so difficult.

Over the years, I have come to realize that writing, as in reading, can be differentiated along the lines of “extensive” and “intensive”, the two being complementary to each other. And the most important foundation to writing itself is reading – extensive reading and intensive reading. Only with extensive reading can one write extensively. Only by making an effort on the word “extensive” will one have rich thoughts for composition and smooth writing skills. Similarly, only through intensive reading can one write intensively. Only by grabbing the word “intensive” will one’s essay be clear and logical with precise expressions as well as elegant and tight structure.

I have heard from friends in the education sector that the younger generation have no interest in writing and seldom write on their own. I dare not agree. In the information age, communications among teenagers have increased markedly and there are more, rather than less, opportunities for using the written language. Young people either set up and host their own blogs or chat at cybercafés; or they compose short messages with their mobile phone or introduce themselves and update the contents daily on Facebook. These are writing activities. The only thing is the writing training provided in many schools has not adequately attended to or made use of these new modes of writing.

How do we make use of electronic media to nurture the writing ability of students? Let me give an example. Recently the most “trendy” medium of communication is “Twitter”. Young people get on the web with their mobile phone only to tell fellow twitters what they are doing. Each “Twitter” piece is limited to 140 words. In language usage, one less word means one higher level of difficulty. Why don’t teachers try exploring with their students in class techniques of expressing oneself using 140 words? Isn’t this kind of training similar to that I have experienced in university? Actually, youngsters nowadays have strong interest in composing and expressing with words. What they are lacking are technique, content, and the means of upgrading themselves on a simple basis. Why don’t educationists write on developing this interest?

Above are my ideas for reference only. I have written several times on the topic of language studies since last month. I would like to close this topic with such a suggestion.