Short Essays: The Devil's Infernal Creation?

I have now received and marked enough of your Short Essays to make some general comparative observations which I hope will be of help to you next time.

The first point I'd like to make is well illustrated by this extract of an email from one of you where it was remarked of the Short Essay that...

...(there should be a law against this particular instrument of torture by the way). I have at least a 1500 words already (some of them are actually joined together in sentences!) but I need to seriously edit the whole thing before I can say that I have even come close to breaking the back of the task.

The point being that it is, in fact, more difficult to write short, concise, pointed and penetrating arguments then it is to write longer ones. The parameters of the exercise are such that your argument must be very parsimonious and focussed--which calls for the exercise of stringent editorial judgement.

And what you should take from this point is that you need to treat the Short Essay quite seriously in terms of the time you leave yourself to consider your argument. It may not take a long time to write but it should take you a good deal of thought before you put pen to paper (finger to keyboard).

This brings me to my second point, which is that the whole exercise of discussing the questions as a group is integral to writing a really good essay. The great thing (at least I think it's great) is that your colleagues are helping you refine your ideas, feed you information and develop an appreciation for the range of opinion on the assigned question. Take advantage of the fact that others are helping you with the intellectual effort of engaging with your assigned presentations.

There's an important corollary to this last point and that is that there is an element of quid pro quo embedded in this process. The better the unit discussion, the better your essay is likely to be and, therefore, the better your mark will be. Further, it follows that if you'd like your colleagues to help you with the intellectual heavy-lifting then it would be sensible for you to contribute when they are in the 'hot-spot'. Translation, should you need one: the more you participate in units in which you have not specialized the more likely it is that you will benefit from the participation of others when it comes your turn.

There is a third point which follows so closely to the second that I'm not sure it is actually a separate point at all; no matter, it's worth pointing out wherever it might fit in the schema of this train-of-thuoght post: For each unit discussion I have a list of points which I think ought to be covered to give something like a logical answer to the question posed (note that I do not say 'complete' or 'right' answer because neither is possible). As we go along I tick off points that have been covered and if there are any left at the end I point them out. As it happens, thus far, I've really had nothing major which I felt was missed in the discussions. So, hint (as above): the discussions matter a lot--they help you to shape your ideas and they act as a resource. You've heard the expression 'two heads are better than one'; in this case, we've got 12 heads.

Finally, an afterthuoght, we've been having a discussion in the comments section of this blog and others about matters including the nature and desirability of American hegemony in the context of which I gave a link to this collection of articles in the journal Commentary which even if you've no particular interest in the topic of the Bush Doctrine strikes me, in hindsight, as a very good illustration of the Short Essay genre. All of these are short, punchy and focussed essays. What they're lacking is footnotes to sources which you are expected to use in your Short Essay, but otherwise they are exemplary of the form. Have a look.