Balanced Essays: Quantity, Quality, and Attention to Detail, Part 1

I want to start this post by saying that balance is an important thing, and yet I never see it addressed. Not in a composition classroom, textbook, conference, or meeting, and if I have, it's been ensconced with other topics as something incidental rather than essential. It's a concept I've stumbled across and, the more I think about it, the more I realize it's an important part of learning how to write.

So what is balance?

Simply, it's the attention a writer gives their material. And yes, I'm being intentionally vague when I say “their material”.

Let's consider it in the context of a 5 Paragraph Essay, about 1000 words long, no tangents, and each paragraph addresses its own specific, related topic. The expectation is each paragraph averages about 200 words. But let's say this essay's paragraphs are, respectively, 200, 400, 150, 100, and 150 words. The enormity of the second paragraph in comparison to those that follow makes it stand out. If it's a decent paragraph, it will identify its topic and then explore it in detail. This is all good, but the other paragraphs being a about a third or fourth in length will pale in comparison. They may be well written paragraphs, but their brevity suggests a few things. The author cared much more about one topic than the others, and these other topics were not addressed to the same extent. This can weaken the overall essay, no matter how good the longer paragraph was.

The solution may or may not be to simply make the other paragraphs three or four times as long: the issue would be if the author can or needs to make these paragraphs as detailed as the first one. If they find the first topic much more interesting than the rest, and the others are there to fill space, then they may be able to produce more words, but the writing won't be as strong. The solution may be scrap the other paragraphs and break the long one into more specific topics.

A great example of this is on annotated bibliographies. I will see a long, almost lyrical summary of a source followed by a few haphazard sentences of evaluation. This is not a reflection on the source but on the author's attention to the sources: the better summary shows the author paid careful attention to one source, but not to the rest of their research. 

Issues of Balance are more prevalent in heavily structured forms, like annotated bibliographies and rogerian arguments (for example: a few sentences are spent on the opposition and a few paragraphs on the author's stance), so I try to emphasize it more when teaching these forms. It's easier to point to the length or number of paragraphs and show how and why the longer and shorter ones, generally, have more detail and show the author was more careful and attentive to one more than another.

However, length is only a superficial indication. Some paragraphs need more detail and attention and will therefore be longer. Others may just need a few sentences to get their job done. The real issue is how the paragraph is written, which is why I used the 5 paragraph essay in my earlier example: each body paragraph has basically the same purpose, so each should have about the same amount of detail and attention, which will likely reflect in their all being close enough in length that none appears significantly longer or shorter than another. You need to read your own writing purposefully: what purpose does each section and paragraph have does it have the detail needed to meet that purpose?

Looking beyond the word count and thinking about purpose and function is important, and I think that focusing on Balance is a good way to teach and emphasize this kind of reading. It may be hard to quantify, require a fair amount of specification, and vary from situation to situation, making it hard to teach, but that’s no reason not to. The overall lesson is to ask yourself what the purpose of the paragraph is and if it is getting the attention and detail it deserves.

Short Term Productivity and Long Term Success

Rather than dust off last year’s unfulfilled goals and reattempt them, dust off a post from a year ago and read it and this one together.

First and foremost, I'm still not keen on year-long goals. Life just gets in the way too easily: adjustments and changes will always need to be made, and I want to use my blogs as an example. Last year, as I was starting this blog, I would have set a goal to get a post up every week, a goal which, in retrospect, would have just caused more problems.

Last month I was beset with the end of the semester which meant a combination of ending one semester and designing another. One moment I'd be grading essays and wrapping up one semester, reflecting on everything I'd taught my students, and the next moment I was busy preparing curriculum for the coming semester. And then it was the holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas. In light of this busy time of year, I concluded that producing blog posts on composition and literature were just taking up time I needed for grading, planning, designing, and other end of year obligations.

But time isn't even all of it. Last year, after only seven or eight posts, I had a lot of what I wanted to say, but halfway through the year I had gone from a long list of things I wanted or needed to address, to giving more specific information on topics I had already addressed and addressing issues as they arose. At the start of the year, I wasn't teaching any classes that required Toulmin or Literature Reviews; I was designing lessons and assignments on the Six Journalistic questions. When courses for Fall were scheduled, I had to write some posts that would deal with subjects I would address in my new courses. But I still didn't feel like I had enough to say, or even the need, to fill a post every week on composition alone. So after July, I cut back from every week to every other week, and started updating Narrative Nuance on the off-weeks.

This is why I don't like year-long goals, especially as I look back at a year and a half's worth of 3x5 cards, each detailing the activities of a given day or week. I'd hate to look back at last year's goals and think I hadn't met them – that I had somehow failed – when my needs and circumstances had changed. I'll take the flexibility planning out a day, a week, or a month in advance gives me over the limited perspective of what I'm doing now and what I could be doing in a year. I don't know what I'll be eating for dinner in a week, so why should I declare the accomplishments I'll have achieved in twelve month's time? I'll be productive now rather than planning out next December.

And productivity is what it is all about. I don't give myself goals and to-do lists because I want to accomplish something months in the future, but because I have work to do now. I may have a greater goal in mind – regular and consistent blog posts, a research project, ending the semester – but it's the smaller, day to day tasks that actually get it done.

Goal setting isn't about accomplishments. It's about being productive and getting work done and making sure you do it every day. That's why I like my stack of index cards. They're a reminder of how productive I can be, and it isn't because of the year long dreams. It's about the little things I have do every single day.

And here's looking forward to another great year!