Some notes on writing

I've got some basic types of writing under my belt at this point:

1) More or less academic, as I've written for school. This is the one that I need the most work on, but helps me out the most in terms of life goals at this point (grades are a big deal to me).

2) Streaming consciousness, where I write whatever comes to my head. I write these in letters to my sister Paige; to some extent they are me naked and are not as smart as I would like them to be. At least they feel like I'm writing myself at my most vulnerable.

3) I write for the NC State Technician Student Newspaper. This has varied, and my archive is available on the Technician Website and on this blog. For non-opinion pieces, of which I have written 4 to 6, it is mandatory to have at least three sources.

4) For opinion pieces, I sometimes incorporate three sources, but sometimes I don't. 500 words is hard to put both an opinion and sources into it.

Sources are not always as academic as I would like them to be, either. For the non-fiction pieces, for the sake of what is being covered, I usually end up using people involved with the issue on campus. This is trickier than it sounds at first because the events themselves I am assigned to are on campus and should involve students to some extent. This narrows it down quite a bit.

But I haven't even written that many non-opinion pieces for the Technician. I've written more opinion pieces, and these are a different breed.

Opinion pieces are encouraged to be about the school, and current events at the school. But the option to become either too ideological, too advice-y, too conceptual, or too evaluative are all pitfalls.

For instance, some students write about North Carolina's Republican politics. Obviously this is smart, but it's completely ideological, and it has nothing to do with NC State students (nevermind the fact that Republicans generally tend to be wrong these days).

On another instance, I've fallen into the trap of trading timelessness for pertinence. I have written columns encouraging successful studying, for example, but this does not have anything to do with current affairs. It might help students, but it is not quite on target for a nice sweet spot.

I wrote an article on sex and individuality, and I think most everyone who read it probably got caught up in the big words from the sources I used. This tells me that I made a mistake to be too academic and that I should simplify my messages for the articles.