Learning From Established Writers

Ubiquity, Volume 2024 Issue July, July 2024 | BY Philip Yaffe

Full citation in the ACM Digital Library | PDF

Ubiquity

Volume 2024, Number July (2024), Pages 1-4

Communication Corner: Learning From Established Writers
Philip Yaffe
DOI: 10.1145/3679024

Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay and doing the exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," then read each succeeding essay.

It is almost cliché to say that to be a good writer (or good speaker), you should read (or listen to) good writers and speakers. This is true. However, it must be taken with a grain of salt because being too attentive to how others write and speak can lead you into dangerous territory.

As many readers may already know, I never set out to be a professional writer (or speaker). Throughout primary school and secondary school, my first loves were unswervingly science and mathematics. However, three experiences that occurred when I reached university rather dramatically broadened my horizons.

In an English literature class, our assignment was to write a book review from a list of tomes offered by the professor. Among these was the 1945 allegorical short work Animal Farm by George Orwell. I immediately fell in love with it. However, not having an innate interest in literature, I concluded my own evaluation of the book would be insufficient, so I sought out the opinions of professionals who had reviewed it when it was first published. This was 1963, long before the internet. Therefore, I actually had to go to the university library to search a variety of newspapers and magazines.

I think I must have read about nine reviews, eight of which praised the work, even to the point of putting it on par with Voltaire's 1759 classic Candide. The ninth reviewer trashed it. Why? To his mind, the book was a pastiche of the history of the Soviet Union, and as such contained numerous factual and historical errors. It is true that Animal Farm may have drawn some of its storyline from Soviet history, but it was much broader than that, being an impishly insightful critic of human nature.

I was so incensed by this reviewer's gross distortion of the book that, instead of writing a review of the book, I wrote a scathing review of this reviewer's review. I simply couldn't help myself.

I turned in my assignment with considerable trepidation. When I got it back about a week later, I fearfully looked at the first page. It had been graded "A," the highest possible accolade under the American grading system (A, B, C, D, F), with the following comments:

This is an extremely well-thought-out, well-written piece of work, deserving of the highest accolades. However, this wasn't the assignment. If you ever do anything like this again, I will fail you.

And of course, I never did.

A second telling experience at university went largely in the opposite direction. In a journalism class, we were tasked to write a review of one of the professor's favorite books—perhaps his absolute favorite because he never stopped talking about it. It was Generation of Vipers by Philip Wylie. In this 1943 work, Wylie rails against numerous ideas and aspects of contemporary American society, including prominent personalities (doctors, politicians, teachers), "momism" (adoration of mothers), and even Christianity.

My dislike of the book was more a question of style than substance. Most of Wylie's opinions seemed well-founded and worthy of serious consideration. However, the way he said it (page after page of fire, brimstone, and vitriol) for me was more than just a little bit off-putting. This is what I said in my review.

The professor, who seemed to revel in Wylie's fire, brimstone, and vitriol, nevertheless gave me a top grade of A. He said that he could see how Wylie's bombast could be detrimental to conveying his various messages. And that he was pleased that I had winkled out and understood the messages despite the obstacles.

Here is the third university experience that significantly informed my writing and public speaking.

As part of my studies, I had to take a class in verbal logic. The textbook frequently mentioned the classic children's story Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It's not commonly known that Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. And in addition to being a superb storyteller, he was also a first-class logician and mathematician (Oxford University).

Having been acquainted with Alice in Wonderland only through the Disney cartoon, I was surprised to see a reference to it in the course textbook. Then another one. And another. And another. And another. The more references I encountered, the curiouser and curiouser I became. I had to read the book.

The fact is, Alice in Wonderland is heavily laden with logical allusions—if you know how to look for them. Prof. Dodgson (Carroll) may have included them on purpose, but given who he was, they might have just found their way into the work naturally. In any event, I was intrigued and determined to find them.

One day, I was sitting in front of the university waiting for a bus and reading Alice in Wonderland. A little old lady walked by. A puzzled expression came over her face when she saw what I was reading. First, she stared at the book, then at the university, then back at the book. Finally, she walked away, shaking her head. I don't know what she was thinking, but I am certain it wasn't very flattering, either for me or the university.

A WORD OF WARNING

I began this essay by discussing Animal Farm. If you think you know the story by having seen the feature-length cartoon version, you don't. To make dour books more palatable to a broad cinema audience, filmmakers sometimes change the ending to make it more hopeful and upbeat than in the book. This is the case with Animal Farm. The ending of the book is quite different from the ending of the film. READ THE BOOK!

Author

Philip Yaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles, where he graduated from the University of California with a degree in mathematics and physics. In his senior year, he was also editor-in-chief of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's daily student newspaper. He has more than 40 years of experience in journalism and international marketing communication. At various points in his career, he has been a teacher of journalism, a reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal, an account executive with a major international press relations agency, European marketing communication director with two major international companies, and a founding partner of a specialized marketing communication agency in Brussels, Belgium, where he has lived since 1974. He is the author of more than 30 books, which can be found easily in Amazon Kindle.

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