3. How Can You Choose the Right Topic?

He was just a boy when his father died and his family moved back horn California to Massachusetts, where eight generations of his forefathers had lived. When the boy grew older, he worked in the mills, tried college for a while, taught school, made shoes, edited a newspaper, and finally settled down as a farmer. After struggling with the earth for eleven years, he sold out even though he loved the soil, went to England with his family and tried his hand at something that had been bubbling within him for a long time. He began to write poetry— about stone walls, hired hands, snowy evenings in the country, and tall birches. Later Robert Frost returned home to find himself acclaimed as the poetic voice of New England.

A young man from Illinois enlisted as an ambulance driver in World War I. He went from there to live a life full of adventure and excitement, showing a remarkable physical toughness. In the middle '30's he became ac­tively engaged in the Spanish Civil War. On his return to this country, he scorned the big cities and found peace in a small Cuban fishing village. The ambulance driver wrote A Farewell to Arms, the most famous American novel about the First World War, and his subsequent rough and tumble escapades found expression in the re­markable short story "The Killers." The pain, suffering, and heroism that characterized the bloody revolt in Spain were admirably depicted in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and from the seacoast retreat emerged The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway's books are his lasting autobiography.

An aspiring young writer sits sadly at his desk. His first play has just been rejected for the third time. The criticism is always the same: "wooden character, unlikely situations, absence of genuine emotion."

These three brief sketches tell the story that lies behind every successful piece of writing. Our distinguished poet and novelist used what interested them in their own experiences to provide them with material to write about. They had lived in the places they described, had met people similar to the characters created by their pens, had felt the emotions that inspired their verse or prose, had witnessed the action that later appeared in their works. They knew down to the last detail what they were writing about!

The young playwright may have had tremendous technical talent, perhaps the literary potential of a Frost or Heming­way. But he had been doomed to failure from the start. Our would-be dramatist's fatal mistake had been to invent people who had never been alive, set up situations that didn't ring true, inject feeling where none existed even in himself. No one can describe the majesty of the Grand Canyon ade­quately if he has never seen it, any more than he can talk about love if he has never been in love. What critics have often said to beginning writers applied very well in this case. He hadn't "lived enough, hadn't been to enough places, hadn't suffered enough." In short, he didn't know what he was writing about!

Now, we have agreed that all you want is to be able to write better high school compositions, not to get a poem published or produce the great American novel. Then why bring up the problems of professionals again? This is why. Whether you write a sentence, a paragraph, or a whole book —as a paid author or a student—you are faced with the same question all writers must answer before they can even begin: "What shall I write about?" Unless you have a ready source of material, you are in trouble right from the start. Call it what you will—topic or subject for a composition, or title of a book for publication—you can't do a good job if you can't get your writing engine started. It may be capable of the most powerful performance but it won't run without gas in the tank. The proper kind of material to write about is the only kind of fuel that will light the fire of your imagination. Without it your ideas sputter and stop dead. The first how we must discuss, then, is the right way to look for ideas and where you can find them easily.

Compositions are usually assigned in one of three ways: a single topic for the entire class, a list of topics from which one must be picked, and the dreaded "Write about anything at all." The poorest writers generally prefer to be given one topic and be done with it. It resolves their problem of choos­ing from many and relieves them of a certain responsibility. They can always blame a bad result on the assignment! Most students would rather be given a list because it limits them to some extent and still offers them a freedom of selection. It isn't odd that only a handful like to be left to their own devices, to pick a topic out of the air, so to speak. These are the students who have a desire to express themselves and have an inexhaustible supply of subjects because they have learned most of the things we will shortly talk about. They aren't bewildered when told they are on their own.

Naturally, you are expected to be able to handle any kind of assignment, and it is on this basis that the suggestions that follow are offered. Although they are listed separately, you are not to assume that each is to be used by itself as a de­vice. A good topic can be developed only if you use at least three or four of the suggested procedures simultaneously as a means of calling up ideas. The main thing to remember is that no topic is impossible if you spend a little time thinking about it and attack it from a number of directions. Be like the hunter who uses a round of buckshot. At least one of the pellets will hit the target even if there are many misses. Here's how it's done.

1. Use your own experiences. Is there anything you know better than yourself and the things you've lived through? Is there anyone who can tell you better what interests you than you can yourself? The richest source of material for any topic is what happens to you from day to day. Take a tip from the professionals. They reach into their past for the moments and episodes that brought them pleasure, excitement, even pain— anything, so long as it is interesting to look back upon. Or they go out and gather material by living it.

That's the formula: interest plus experience. Write about things you know first hand, incidents that stimulate some emotion in you when you review them, events that were a change from the routine, or sometimes the routine itself can be made exciting to a reader.

Take advantage of human curiosity. We are all born with the desire to pry into the private lives of other people. Tell others about yourself, what happens at home, in school, on vacations—the little things, the ones the reader will be able to compare with his own experiences.

Suppose, for example, you found a topic like "The Trials of a Gardener" among a list of fifteen. At first glance, you might say, to yourself:

"What do I know about gardening? I wouldn't know a rose bush from poison ivy."

Instead, you should say, if you are at all interested:

"Now, let's see. What has happened to me that can be used here? Or what have I seen about gardening as practiced by somebody else?"

Here is the answer to these questions that one student was able to work out and express beautifully in a composition a test, no less, when there was little time to think. how the charm of the piece is enriched because you f been given the opportunity to look inside a stranger's door.

The Trials of a Gardener

Some years ago, my sister decided to take up garden­ing as a hobby. Since we are city dwellers, her interests were confined to small, sturdy plants.

To begin with, she bought a small ivy plant which be­gan to climb the bedroom wall in almost no time at all. The first smell of success obviously went to Joyce's head because within a week's time she expanded her garden­ing interests to include a snake plant, another ivy, a begonia in full bloom, and a small geranium. Needless to say, our room began to look like a greenhouse.

I never uttered a word of complaint during the begin­ning stages of my sister's hobby. In fact, í rather en­joyed the colorful changes in the room. But then, alas, tragedy struck. The geranium, which had been doing so nicely all along, began to wilt. Joyce decided that it was time to transplant. Besides, í think she got slightly bored doing nothing but water and pick dead leaves off her blooming vegetation, and transplanting sounded like fun. She bought two large window boxes and a ten pound bag of soil. I tried to explain to her that it would be very messy to do any transplanting in the apartment. It did. no good. She was being very noble and gallant and said that she was only doing it to save the life of her poor geranium.

it took only one window box and five pounds of soil to transplant the geranium. This was apparently not what the poor thing needed because it died within two weeks. Í suppose this misfortune was too much for Joyce be­cause in a short time she stopped taking care of the other plants, too.

Now we have about five flower pots and one window box filled with dry soil, one empty window box, and five pounds of unused, fertile soil to clutter up our room. Do you know anyone who is interested in gardening?

It is possible in practically every instance to personalize a topic by using the approach suggested above. Let's look at a few more examples of how this can be done. Of course, I can't tell you what to select from your experiences since you are the only one who knows them. But if you observe what I would choose to write about for various assignments, you will be able to adapt many of the ideas to your own work.

FREE CHOICE

I could write about the time I went to retrieve a tennis ball in a pasture and was chased by a bull. There are lots of similar vacation experiences.

Then there was the time I tried to drive a 1925 Packard and discovered it had no brakes.

I'll never forget the time some friends and I took some girls out to a fancy restaurant and had to borrow money from our dates because the bill was unexpectedly high.

I still recall the time I tore a new pair of pants and won­dered how I would explain the disaster to my father.

The bully of the block, when I was thirteen, never knew how frightened I was when he decided to test out that new kid from Connecticut.

Do you get the idea? The little things that may have lasted only an hour or so make very interesting reading. Make your title interesting, too. Ones that come to mind for the ex­periences described are these:

The Tennis Playing Toreador Driving a Museum Piece

Dutch Treat à la Carte

Jack the Ripper Goes Home Facing the Music

LIST OF TOPICS

Here are 15 topics given on a state examination some years ago. Notice how, with a little thought, every one of them could have been personalized.

Socialized Medicine

If you are for it, tell how it could have helped you once when you (or some member of your family, or a relative, or friend) were sick.

If you are against it, stress what harm it could bring to you if you became sick and couldn't get the doctor you wanted, etc.

Abundance and Waste in America

You may have been on a trip and seen forests destroyed by fire, or watched a farmer dump milk and thought of the slum kids back in the cities, or have thought of the books, teachers, buildings, and grounds furnished in such quantities by the states and the failure of some students to take advan­tage of this generous educational offering.

The Dispute Over Comic Books

This one is easy. You've read them. What do you think about them, how do they affect you, and are they all good or bad? Did they ever cause you trouble?

Voyage to the Moon

How would you feel as a passenger in a space ship? What would you expect to find on landing? Did you ever try to build a rocket?

International Student Relations

At first glance you might think of other nations, iron cur­tains, politics, and international suspicions. But to personalize you must go beyond the literal meaning of the topic, and, believe me, your teachers will welcome an original approach. You don't have to write about the broad concepts, if you aren't interested. Look to your own experiences in gaining new friends when you moved, went to a new school, or spent a summer away from home. Out of these recollections can come ideas that will enable you to write about this` sub­ject without the need for probing into the more complicated questions that you would rather leave to the political analysts. The technique of "looking beyond the topic" was used ex­pertly by the student who wrote this composition, on a topic very similar to the one above:

Winning Friends Abroad

The best way I know how to win friends abroad is to put into practice the age old system of corresponding with pen-pals overseas. Í don't know exactly when, where, or now this idea came to he, but I must admit 1 have enjoyed it very much for many years now.

Deena, a beautiful, petite, and very saucy French girl was the first friend í made in this manner. We have "watched" each other mature from mere children of twelve to young ladies of seventeen. With the exchange of letters, souvenirs, pictures, and gifts, Í feel I am as close to Deena as I am to my dearest friend here in school. I have learned a good deal about her country and try to answer all her questions, and then some, about my country and city. Imagine her surprise one day when I wrote her a whole letter in French (using what I had learned in the four years Í studied the language). Several of her friends have written to me, anxious to learn all they could about our food (especially hot dogs), enter­tainment, and our school system. í enjoy writing to them and feel I am making new and interesting friends.

Í have added a host of new boys and girls to my list of pen-pals over the years. They include an Israeli girl who will soon be drafted into the women's army; Dino, an extremely handsome singer in Italy; and a girl who lives in a real palace in Baden-Baden, Germany, a town noted for its sulphur baths. Of course, we are all anxious to see each other some day, but right now we must be content to wait for pictures, letters, and I—my recordings from Dino.

I believe this is the best thing a person can do to win lasting friendships abroad, and I fervently hope that more young people as well as adults will learn to use this method. Perhaps then we shall have a broader understanding of the customs and traditions of the societies in which these people Jive.

Freedom for All People

We are now at our sixth topic. Wouldn't it be interesting if you wrote about the constant fight for freedom every teen­ager puts up against his parents? That would personalize it with a vengeance, wouldn't it?

Farm Horsepower

Practically everybody has been to a farm or the country at least once. Why not describe the various machines the farmer uses, as you saw them, and compare them to the kind your history books tell you he used years ago?

The Chairman Learns Many Things

Have you ever been the head of a committee, or tried to persuade others to do something you wanted, or been in charge of an activity? What were your experiences?

Financing the School Newspaper

This, of course, is another easy one. You talk about your own ideas on how the money should be raised, or simply what you do to get the necessary funds to support school projects like a newspaper.

My Musical Education

Even if you have never taken a lesson, you can talk about your voice training in the music classes and what it did for you, or the desperate efforts your parents may have once made to get you to play an instrument.

Old Foods—New Methods

How do you like frozen foods, or ready-made pizza pies, or dehydrated milk? You would probably have fun telling us about some of your adventures with products bought in a supermarket.

Unwanted

Everybody feels rejected by family or friends at least once in a while. Tell about one such time.

Keeping Up With History Today

This is another topic that sounds rather technical at first. However, "look beyond it" and you may decide to talk about the trouble you have doing your history homework, or how you go about faking reports for the history class. Confession is good for the soul, you know, and may even get you a good mark on your composition—and you can swear your English teacher to secrecy. Incidentally, your history teacher knows about it anyway.

Accidents Are Not Accidental

There must have been hundreds of occasions when, with a little more caution, you could have avoided a bump or a bruise or even a broken bone. Tell about one such occasion.

Gadgets

Pick out any appliance in your home that amazes you by its operation. It's a gadget you can readily write about, I'm sure.

There you are. Fifteen topics—fifteen opportunities to per­sonalize if you "look beyond the topic" or just look back into your own experiences and pick out one for your material source. It can be done, without too much trouble. You are not to assume that because I am a professional writer that it was easy for me. Just reach into your memory of the things you've done and seen and you will gradually discover that inexhaustible supply of topics I mentioned earlier.

SINGLE ASSIGNED TOPIC

Now you know what to do about this kind of assignment, too. Just "look beyond the topic" and personalize. You come back after the summer's vacation and you are asked to write about it. You hate the idea because you are still in mourning for the lost golden days of vacation leisure. Well, pick out one of the golden moments. Mind you, I didn't say "days." It's the small event, usually, that does the trick. Build it up as was suggested.

Or the entire class is asked to enter an essay contest. The topic assigned is a very appetizing one, like "Why Every Citizen Should Vote." You aren't old enough to vote your­self, but you are expected to write about it. Well, what does your family do about this question? What have you heard your father or mother say? Perhaps you want the voting age lowered. Why? Why do you think you would qualify right now? If you could vote, what would your attitude be toward the topic? Perhaps you have heard adults argue the question. What was your reaction to their statements? Possibly you feel like a rebel. Everything is fixed in advance anyway, you think. All right. Tell why you think so and why citizens should not vote until . . .

We have just covered the basic secret of how to select proper material to write about. It must come out of you and be about you, if at all possible—and you have seen how it can be done. There are several other techniques you can also use.

2. Don't ignore the commonplace. When you were told to concentrate on the little things in using your experiences for composition material, you perhaps took it for granted that the reference was to the unusual incident or sight. Undoubtedly the out-of-the-ordinary provides the greatest interest for the reader and you should certainly try to use such material whenever you can. However, you can often create a very en­tertaining topic out of the routine daily occurrences that you never give much attention. Some of our most successful co­medians have made their reputations by building stories around the commonplace: taking care of the lawn, going to the store on errands, family differences of opinion, or bringing up baby. If you look for it, you will find much to be said about buying a pair of shoes, combing your hair, making or eating a favorite dish, walking in ankle-deep snow, delivering grocery bundles after school, or piling a load of hay on a wagon. An assigned topic like "The Value of Mathematics" need not be impossible even if you shudder when you think of algebra, geometry, and calculus. Why not write about how you manage to stretch your weekly allowance to cover dat­ing as well as chocolate ice cream sodas? I recall a very inter­esting composition on this subject by a student who described how he had used mathematics to explain to his mother what the best buy was in canned goods, checking contents in ounces against size and price. Here's what another student did when confronted with the topic "Visit Your Dentist Reg­ularly":

Whenever í must see my dentist, Í defer the thought of it, like an ostrich with his head in the sand, until the morning of the dreaded visit, in his outside office I sit and hear my heart hammer away. í know that once I am in the chair Í shall weather it somehow, but there is al­ways the possibility, the fear—what if I should not?

I begin to imagine the endless process of digging and drilling, the stiffness of my jaw from keeping my mouth agape, and the possible horrible need to ask my tor­mentor to hold everything for a moment until I can pull myself together. Since my dentist is a busy man, Í feel humiliated at showing such childish anxiety, and that makes my heart hammer away even harder.

I begin to concentrate on the disturbing painting on the wall. I get lost for a bit in the meaningless abstrac­tion. Why did the artist have to communicate something which was not so much a challenge as a dare? Only he could know what the powerful strokes represented. Why was one area dark and blank and the other white, paint-daubed and spotted?

The anxiety seems to have disappeared for a moment. No. It is coming back. My dentist opens the door and waves me in. I sit down, stare out of the window at the moving clouds, at the buildings, at anything in order to forget the nagging fear. My mouth is open, my head is buzzing with the noisy drill, and I am fighting to control myself. My palms are wet, my face is damp, and I may have to ask the poor man to stop. No. He is finished. I am finished. I smile weakly, say I'll see him next Tues­day, and I'm out.

What a bright, happy world it is. I'll be in time for my skating appointment, too. I'll be able to keep my mouth closed for one whole week.

3. Vary your approach. Try taking an unexpected point of view toward a commonly accepted belief or tradition. Occa­sionally, this technique can be very effective. For instance, one is supposed to revere one's relatives, but note the extraor­dinary humor, albeit somewhat savage, in the following student effort:

TV Nightmare

Uncle Hyram died as he had lived, out of spite. For just pain being mean, we always said he could best any­one in town; but by how much we didn't know until after he was dead. I guess if I am going to tell this, I might as well do it light and start with the television set.

For a long time Uncle Hyram had been sick, mostly just old, I think, until one cold January night he went to bed and never got out again. For all of that year, and the next, and the next, and about ten or fifteen more, Uncle Hyram lay in that bed screeching like an old woman with a cramp. That's just about all I remember of my growing up years.

About a year ago, after being on the phone all day, Uncle Hyram surprised us all by announcing that he had bought a television set for his room, and if we would pay a little more attention to a sick old man, he might just let us come in and watch it sometimes. Of course, the kids were all excited, but the rest of us just pursed our lips and waited for the hitch to show itself; it did, soon enough.

The following day some men brought the set in and installed it in Uncle Hyram's room. That night we took chairs in and sat around waiting for the old man to turn the set on. He lay back on the pillows looking like a wet canary that had just eaten the cat. The kids couldn't sit still; they chattered back and forth about all the big shows we would be able to see now, and so on. Finally,

Uncle Hyram began to jigger the remote control thing he had and the set came to life for the first time.

Bits and pieces of the network shows we wanted to see snapped on and off as he turned the channel num­bers dizzily about, in our town we have a local station which shows the really old and really bad movies, rid­dled with feature length commercials. I don't know anybody who ever watched this program unless he was too drunk to know what he was looking at. But that's exactly where Uncle Hyram turned to.

"Just love these old movies," he said, as he leered at us with his heady, little eyes.

And that's the way it was, night after night, 'till we had Blerble Kleener and Keystone Cops running out of our ears. He just did it out of meanness. With all the shows we were dying to see, he watched the old movies and so did we. Finally one night when there was to be a big spectacular on, we had just about come through as much as we could.

For the first part of the evening and the first half of a tired, flickering romance, we all sat quietly. But when the time came for the big show, Pa just got up, went to the set, and disconnected that remote gadget of Uncle Hyram's. Then, as the old man breath to get up enough breath to start yelling, Pa switched to the channel that we wanted to watch and returned to his seat. I've never seen anybody as hopping mad as Hyram was as he bounced around in that big old bed of his. He screamed and he hollered, but it didn't do him any good; we just sat and watched the show.

I guess he must have come to realize that it wasn't doing any good, his bellowing, that is, because he stopped and just sort of lay there for a minute. He looked around at us, each one. Then he gave a little yelp and flopped back on the bed, dead. I reckon he was out to spoil that show for us, one way or another.

It was a doggone good show, from beginning to end.

Other ways of varying your approach can be listed:

1. Write your composition in letter form. The topic might be "Science Fair." Pretend you are visiting one and write a letter to a friend about it.
2. Tell a story to illustrate your ideas on a serious question. For a topic like "Unrest Among Soviet, Satellites," why not pretend you are a Hungarian boy or girl and describe your experiences? Tell why you and your invented parents are unhappy.
3. Write an entire composition in dialogue form, like a play. You pick "Car Insurance for Minors." All right, set the scene. There are a judge, some lawyers, an injured adult, and a reckless young driver. Let them talk it out.
4. Use the diary technique. Topic: "Counting Calories." Go through a week's starvation schedule. Let each day be a paragraph and reveal your darkest diary secrets.
5. Use the present tense throughout, especially if it is an action piece you are composing. This heightens the move ment and suspense.

4. Get the facts. Never attempt to write on a topic about which you are poorly informed. Your scanty knowledge will show through like an elbow out of a threadbare sleeve. If you are not permitted to personalize or you don't want to with a particular assignment, make sure you have the neces­sary facts before you plunge in. Go to the library and do some research, if there is time. Perhaps some book at home will do the trick. Certainly the writer of the following compo­sition had his material will in mind before tackling his topic:

Alaska—Our 49th State

Alaska was purchased sight unseen in l86y through the efforts of James Seward, our Secretary of State at the time. It was sold to us by Russia at the incredible bar­gain of about seven million dollars. Seward was ridi­culed for what appeared to be a flamboyant disregard of the American purse. The purchase of Alaska was called "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox."

The Secretary of State was called upon to justify his action before an outraged Congress. He told them that the relatively small sum was a gift to Russia for her support of our policies abroad. He also hastily added that it kept another nation off the North American continent, in line with our policy of isolation. Little did he or Congress suspect, then, that in less than one hun­dred years Alaska was to become a state.

Our new state is twice the size of Texas, which was formerly our largest, it contains millions of acres of tall, straight trees, providing a nearly endless natural lumber­yard for our future needs. There are still vast deposits of gold ore in spite of the Klondike rush. Alaska's mineral wealth alone is comparable to that of all the other states combined. The climate, although cooler than it is where we live, is not abnormally cold in many places. Its south­ern shores are warmed by the passing Japanese current.

The products of Alaska are many and varied. Fish ranks as its leading export. Most people make their liv­ing fishing or packing fish for shipment. Among the other products are sugar beets, furs, oleo and salmon ex­tract.

Since Alaska will soon become a new state, it is a new frontier for the United States. The government gives anyone who cares to migrate 160 acres of land. Business is booming because of the stationing of troops near many large cities. Large markets have been opened for manu­facturers. Alaska seems to be the new "land of oppor­tunity." However, there are matters to consider before packing and heading north-northwest.

At least ten thousand dollars are necessary to insure a good beginning in this land. In the winter there are fewer than eight hours of daylight each day for six months. Life is rugged and will be for a while, although many of the larger cities look already much like our own. So if you have an adventuresome nature and an eager foot, Alaska is for you.'

You can appreciate why the writer chose this topic. He knew enough facts to support his ideas and make them sound convincing.

For some topics it is a good idea to act like a newspaper reporter. Suppose you are assigned something like "What Businessmen Expect of Beginners." Don't guess. Go to a businessman in the neighborhood and ask him. He'll be glad to talk to you. Or you might be asked to write about "Caare trained and find out the kinds of jobs they become ca­pable of accepting.

If the topic doesn't lend itself to personalizing, then do the next best thing. Build up your background so that you can use details to good advantage. But let me repeat. Never choose a topic that calls for information you do not possess at the time you do your writing.

5. Limit the scope. This is one of the most important cau­tions you must observe. It means simply that the ground you expect to cover with your topic must be no broader than is dictated by the number of words you have been asked to write. If the composition calls for 250-300 words, avoid handling your topic so that you would need 10,000 words to do it justice.

For example, you have been asked to write on "Television Troubles." Millions of lines could be written on this subject, but you are not expected to write them. At most, your teacher probably wants no more than four or five paragraphs. You must narrow down your area of discussion to a decent size. Should you write about television commercials? No, this is still too much to cover. How about one particular commercial you like very much or detest rather strongly? That's better. Now you can concentrate your fire. You won't be like the man who tries to use a cupful of paint to cover four walls and the ceiling.

Here is a good illustration of how a writer can limit the scope of a broad topic and produce a composition rich in de­tail:

Television Troubles

When you invite guests to your home for an evening of television, you have a chance to see televiewers at their best and at their worst. All you need to do is watch the people who axe watching the screen.

At least one of the visitors may be the restless type. He periodically sprints horn his chair to the set to adjust the controls. The fact that he has no set of his own seems to fill him with the desire to play with yours. First he experiments with the volume. The sound is a little too loud or too soft for him and, he is sure, for the other listeners as well. Having adjusted the dials so that every muted violin can be heard, he must leap forward whenever the blast of the commercial comes on. He becomes intoxicated with his power over the machine. He hunts for programs other than the ones you have se­lected. He keeps switching back from channel to chan­nel. The result of his unfailing devotion to duty is a jumble for the eyes and an assault on the nervous sys­tems of the viewers.

Then there is the professional critic. He talks about the bad casting, the poor direction, the implausible story, and the waste of time it is to watch at all. You feel tempt­ed to wonder out loud why he came at all.

How different is the guest who accepts your invita­tion to see a certain program and does precisely that. He takes the good with the bad. He doesn’t t eat up all your fruit and candy. He even wipes his feet before he comes in. That one you ask again.

The problems presented by guests have given me an idea for a new business. I'm going into the printing field. I'll sell signs to homeowners with this motto: "Visitors should be seen but not heard after the set has been turned on by the host!"

The broad topic cut down to a few lively pictures became quite manageable for the average 300 word composition. In­cidentally, limiting the scope gives you greater flexibility, too. Suppose you were told to write about "The Power of the Supreme Court." You know that you are not expected to go back to John Marshall and trace the development of judi­cial control over the past hundred and fifty years. If you have been asked to write 500 words, you may decide to use two cases to make your points clear. If the assignment is 250 words, one case will do; if only a paragraph has been re­quested, part of one case will be enough. Keeping your mate­rial within bounds, therefore, will help you adjust your tar­get so that you will be able to aim with reasonable accuracy.

6. Take a stand. Whenever you must write about a contro­versial topic, don't sit on the fence. If you do, the result will generally be weak and unconvincing. Make up your mind and swing out hard, one way or the other. If you are for the idea, be 100% for it, but be sure to back up your statements with acceptable arguments. If you are against the idea, go all out to oppose it and fire away with all the factual weapons you have at your command. Never allow yourself to be found with both feet planted firmly in the air. Stay on solid ground, use statistics and references, and say Yes or No in a loud voice.

You will hear people say that nothing is all right or all wrong. That's true. But the convincing speaker or writer, having thought through the controversy, makes up his mind about which is the more desirable point of view. Then he lets you know his position. It is so much easier for him to influ­ence your opinion if he has one of his own.

You have been told to write about "Political Indifference in the United States." You don't believe that people are in­different. Fine. Say so, prove it, and don't give an inch. Addi­tional research may help you change your mind later on, but at the time you write you should have a strong belief so that you can write with strength.

Here is what a young man wrote about nuclear weapons. He even personalized a bit! Does he leave any doubt about where he stands?

One Good Suggestion Toward International understanding

In discussing international understanding, we must realize that even a beginning cannot be made until the parties involved are meeting on equal ground. This is hardly possible while major powers are struggling to produce bigger and better bombs and rockets. As one temporarily surpasses another in this race, it becomes in­creasingly harder to achieve this equal stand. What, then, is the key?

I think the answer is the prohibition of testing nucleardevices for other than peaceful purposes. Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved the capabilities of what are now small bombs. The results were almost beyond the imagination. So much property and so many lives were destroyed in one devastating blow. With this horrible shadow con­stantly over them, how can nations be expected to come together so long as any one of them has the means of delivering even heavier blows?

Excuse my sounding like a movie title, but I want to live. Life is short enough as is and for a reason as waste­ful as war, I would hate to lose mine. I say let people stop worrying about the future and they will soon find avenues along which they can walk together. I couldn't be very cordial to you if you carried a club behind your back which you might use as soon as I disagreed with you.

Only through the elimination of these deadly nuclear weapons can we achieve the equal ground necessary to obtain international understanding. Only through such understanding can we achieve world peace. And only through world peace can í hope to live out my three score and ten.

Let's sum up. If you have a free choice of topic, I would suggest that you personalize every time. It's the surest way to be interesting. I want you to read one final sample. The writer was a poor student who specialized in dullness and made many technical errors. But he finally got the message about how to select good material to write about. I'm sure you will agree that his composition shows great promise because he learned to look to himself for inspiration. Most of the errors have been corrected because I want you to concentrate on what personalizing did for him.

True Friendship

Throughout my life my pets have been a great help to me and a wonderful pleasure. Animals have also been some of my truest friends.

Wolf was the first friend I ever had. When I was three years old my father came home one night with a large box which contained a German police dog. Wolf seemed to understand me better than my mother or father. We lived in the country so there was no one but the dog to look after me. As I grew older Wolf and I spent many happy days playing together. He even pulled my wagon when Í played stagecoach. My mother never had to worry about my eating for Wolf wouldn't let me leave the table until I had eaten all that had been given to me. When I became seven we moved to Texas and the dog was left with some neighbors.

Triangle was a bay stud horse that was owned by the man in the next ranch. Everyday after school I would run to the fields where he would be eating. After a few months we became the best of friends and Triangle let me ride him. One day I saw my father talking to Mr. Aston, our neighbor and also the owner of my new friend. They called to me and I advanced with some fear. Mr. Aston had seen me ride Triangle and he was telling my father that I was mounting a stud horse that had never been broken. I was quite shocked but I didn't let the men know. My father died shortly after, and we had to move again. Triangle was left in Texas.

Since we now lived in a city and í don't think it is fair to coop up animals, Í got myself a fish tank. There was no greater pleasure for me than to watch for hours the different types of fish on the other side of the glass. It was almost as if I had a window that looked into an­other world. As school became more important to me I had less time for my fish and so my mother took care of them.

It is a wonderful feeling to have a warm friend wait­ing for you when you get home. It matters little whether it is a dog, cat, or even a monkey. I hope everyone can have the pleasure from pets that I have had.

Not bad for a borderline student, is it?

Before you choose a topic:

Pick the one that allows you to personalize.

If you have no choice, try to personalize the one that has been assigned.

Don't ignore the commonplace.

Be well-informed about factual or controversial topics before you write.

Limit your scope in proportion to the number of words required.

Make up your mind about topics that can be argued, and then argue with all your skill.

EXERCISES

(There can be no "answers" here because many possibilities exist in each example. However, at the end of the chapter there will be suggested solutions. Compare your results with the ones listed to see whether you were on the right track.)

1.         How would you personalize the following topics:
Newspapers As Benefactors Is the Farmer a Profiteer? A Woman for President The Battle for Asia Mathematical Machines
2.         Select 5 ordinary things you do every weekday morning before you leave the house. Phrase these routine activeties into topics.
3.         What would be an unusual approach in handling the following topics:
Medical Research The Shrinking Dollar Are Horses Obsolete? The New Look in Houses A Great Composer
4.         What would you do to get information about each of the following:

A Nursing Career

Is Professional Baseball Really a Game?

The Romance of Words

Dating on a Dime

Scientists Work for the Police

5. What limited topics could be devised from the follow­ing very broad ones:

Travel

Deep Sea Fishing Modern Music Clothes Make the Man Keeping Livestock Happy

Suggestions for Handling the Questions

1. Personalizing topics:

Newspapers As Benefactors Tell how a newspaper helps you with your assignments, or gave you an idea from which you profited, or settled an argument for you, or (as an odd twist) made excellent wrapping paper for fish.

Is the Farmer a Profiteer? If you live on a farm, talk about your father's problems, or talk about what you have observed when you visited a farm or two.

A Woman for President If you are a girl, describe what you would do if you were elected. If you are a boy, explain how a woman president would make your Me different.

The Battle for Asia Any topic of international scope can be reduced to the effect the outcomes of the disturbance could have upon you and your future.

Mathematical Machines Describe that genius in your math class who does things mentally that take you long hours with pad and pencil, or describe your experiences when you had the opportunity to observe an electrical calculating ma­chine.

2. Topics from the ordinary:

The Art of Brushing Teeth

Catching Those Extra Few Winks Last Minute Cramming

Eating on the Run

What Shall I Wear?

3. Unusual approaches:

Medical ResearchPretend you are a human guinea pig. Describe your heroic suffering in the cause of the advance­ment of medical knowledge. Pretend you are a doctor and make entries in a log of an experiment.

The Shrinking Dollar You are the dollar. Explain what has happened to you in the last twenty years. Or you have found a menu years old. Compare the prices then and now.

Are Horses Obsolete? You are a cowboy, peddler, jockey, etc. Answer it from the point of view of one of these people.

The New Look in Houses Prepare an advertisement for a newspaper describing a new house you are planning to build. Perhaps you are a scientist who has harnessed the en­ergy of the sun. Take it from there and describe how you would save on fuel, electricity, etc.

A Great Composer You are listening to a great sym­phony. Describe what the music tells you about the life of the composer. Write a letter to your school newspaper com­plaining about the lack of recognition accorded your favorite popular songwriter.

4.         Getting information:

A Nursing Career Visit a hospital. Ask a nurse about her job and the preparation for it.

Is Professional Baseball Really a Game? Call up the general office of a professional baseball club and ask for an appointment with one of the players. Tell why you want to talk to him. Your request will be granted, I'm sure.

The Romance of Words Go to the library. There are many fascinating books on the subject of word derivations and development.

Dating on a Dime Try it yourself first and then write about it, or ask one of your friends who has done it to tell you how.

Scientists Work for the Police There are books on the subject of crime detection through laboratory experiments, but the best way would be to visit a police laboratory.

5. Limited Topics:

Travel                                                 Modern Music

How to Pack Bags Efficiently                The Job of the Bass Violin
                                                            My Favorite Vocalist
A Canoe Trip                                       What Is Swing Music?
Eating on a Train, or Plane

Clothes Make the Man

DeepSea Fishing                              Are Bermuda Shorts Here to Stay?
One Big Catch                                     
The Proper Bait for Tuna                      Dressing for an Interview
Conquering Seasickness                       Saturday Night Dress

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