Coiling around the core of the essay

As a Tufts Writing Fellow, I recently met with a Chinese student to discuss her paper for a social science class. I was struck by the language she had used, which was more engaging than what I am used to seeing in academic papers, cushioned with metaphors and humor. It took me a couple reads to realize that she had not exactly addressed the prompt and skirted around the main point.

I found myself torn about how to proceed. I knew it was not the Chinese way to address a topic head-on. It is customary to “weirao” (coil around) the issue at hand. I was hesitant to “correct” her. Who was I to say that her stylistic choice was not valid, especially when it had such personality?

This summer, I myself had an experience in which encircling an idea, rather than approaching it head-on, solved a roadblock I had encountered. During my program in China, I spent a week in the countryside of Anhui province conducting social studies research on women’s roles in modern-day rural China. I began with direct questions that seemed more appropriate when I formulated them on paper in the classroom than when I directed them at a person.

I almost abandoned my idea altogether when I met a woman, standing inconspicuously alongside the road of a village I was visiting, who restored my hope. I introduced myself, and we talked under my umbrella about the difficulty of finding work in rural areas and about her economic struggles. We covered a lot of ground before approaching the topic I really wanted to discuss: her experience as a woman. Even then, I didn't ask the blunt questions I had originally intended to ask. Instead, I asked about her mother: what she was like, what she had taught her, how her life had been different from her own. I learned that day that the most direct path is not always the most effective.

Back in Brown and Brew, I suggested that the student minimize, but not erase, the metaphorical language that she had used in her paper and focus more on the actual content. She was reluctant to part with what she had written, and, honestly, so was I. She had clearly taken time to consider how to approach the issue, rather than spitting it out at the start. She had given the reader time to adjust, get a feel for the temperature, before diving into unknown waters. Isn’t that something we should all be doing as writers?

We do, yes, when it falls into the box labeled “creative.” This article, for example, begins with an anecdote, not a thesis that outlines precisely what I am about to say. In academic papers, however, American students often fall into the trap of stating the point and stating the point only. Many high schools teach writing in this highly formulaic way, so it is no surprise that students forget that creativity is also permitted.

Maybe surrounding the main idea in a circular motion is just another form of a formula. Even so, a road that winds around a mountain can have more variety than one that cuts straight through; likewise, an indirect path to the core of a paper allows the writer to make more choices along the way.