Midterm Synthesis

While reading John McPhee, I feel as though I'm learning more about what it takes to be a good writer. The biggest points for me so far have been: well researched, speech like writing, small picture to big picture, and trust in your own interests.

McPhee is fantastic at approaching a subject with an ability to explain it simply. A skill that is only possible if you have a solid grasp on what you're writing about. He accomplishes this by conducting a variety of interviews. It's been through this class that I realized how interviewing is almost like fact creation. In the same way that we constantly have to be citing our sources in academic writing, journalists have to cite other people. The person you choose, and your ability to explain why they're a qualified source that you should trust, is almost more important than the quote you choose to use from them. McPhee knows, not only how to ask good questions but also, who and where to find the right people.

The flow and sound of the words carry a huge impact as well. Like our classic example from "In Virgin Forest" of the use of ",yes," McPhee can write like you would imagine he speaks. I guess this creates a sort of informal, casual atmosphere that allows readers to be receptive. A pretentious tone with any hint of elitism will quickly alienate a large percentage of casual readers, and somehow McPhee is able to avoid doing this, even when talking subjects as seemingly esoteric as geological rock formations.

I've heard that a key point to "Journalistic" writing is the movement from a small picture story to a big picture concept. I'm thinking this is one of the techniques that qualifies McPhee's work as "literary journalism." I'm thinking of the stories in "Coming into the Country." He'll take a specific person and explain his situation, what brought him to Alaska, and what obstacles he's encountering. By doing this he creates a single character that is easier to for us to relate to while actually introducing sweeping ideas and issues that are a concern for a whole community, or as in "Coming into the Country," fundamental tendencies in the collective American consciousness.

I have a hunch that John McPhee is a very confident and self reliant human being. It's the only way that I can understand his willingness to write on such a variety of nontraditional topics. He must just trust his own instincts and interests, and know that if he can find something interesting in some topic that it's just a matter of sharpening your tools as a writer before other people will take interest too. I think it's a good lesson for just about everyone. There are far too many people living in far too enclosed of a culture for us to ever believe that we can be alone in anything we think or feel.

From what I've been learning, this may be my favorite part. Trusting that someone can relate to something you honestly find interesting gives you the confidence to write about the topics that you find rewarding and it pretty well guarantees that you'll never run out of stuff to say. McPhee's prolific career is pretty solid proof of this.

-Adam

Post 3 - Feb 14, 10

This week the class has really helped to get me thinking about interviewing. It's a skill that I don't feel very comfortable with yet, but it's something that I think may be very important.

John McPhee seems to be a master interviewer. He gets such great details and, what feels like, a very thorough understanding of all his characters.

I'm reading "Coming Into The Country" at the moment and I'm wondering how he ever came to meet Brad Snow and Lilly Allen, two people trying to live as naturally as possible in Alaska. The investigative research in this article is great. He comes to understand a local point of a view and the problems they're facing. He then goes on to find his own proof for their argument, which leads him to more interesting people, and they all seem very comfortable to talk to him.

I'm also reading "All The President's Men" for another class, which is partly helping to spike my interest in interviewing. It seems like the act of fact creation. If one person says something, then you can quote it, which can be used to further an argument or opinion. I guess that makes journalism seem pretty shaky, but I think that's the point of cross referencing. One opinion doesn't really mean anything, but if you find that same opinion amongst a bunch of different people, then your argument starts to appear pretty true, or at least worth considering.

You can also use credible sources, but the whole credentials thing seems pretty flawed to me. I don't trust the opinion of someone working in whatever department handles land claims in governments when considering the morality of unused land ownership, even though you would think they'd have the "right" answer. This is the point of the critical liberal arts students, we need our writers to question the source and everything about their position that would influence their opinions, because I don't believe its a very common trait. This is why a PhD or bureaucratic title alone doesn't cut it for me. And so far McPhee has been great at expressing why I should trust, or respect, the sources giving him a lot of his information.

-Adam

Post 2

This week I read "1839/2003" in the December 2003 edition of The New Yorker, and I really liked it.

I found it to be a little long, probably just because of the amount of work I have to catch up on, but McPhee succeeded again to write about things that interest me personally. I'm sure that has something to do with Katelyn Mokler's intro to the article as well.

I think they biggest thing I learned this week (in relation to this class) was a bit about Henry Thoreau. I have always wanted to know more about him but was never able to get very far into "Walden." McPhee has made him out to be a spontaneous, thoughtful writer with a good sense of humor. I've added "Walden" to my reading list again.

It doesn't surprise that Thoreau is probably a bit of a hero to McPhee. They both seem to have a similar blend of scholar and adventurer that easily captivates my attention. I'm looking forward to reading similar stories, but I think for the next reading I'm going to try and deliberately pick something different.

Post 1

I think I’m beginning to get an idea for who John McPhee is and his style of writing. So far, I’m a fan.
I like his well-researched, descriptive style. Whether or not I’m reading it the way McPhee would like, I’m not sure, but I don’t get hung up on the references I’m not familiar with. I like the room to research later if the article interests me.
Aside from the article on geology, everything I’ve read so far appeals to my personal interest, and I still even enjoyed the way the geology article was written.
I’ve also never given “The New Yorker” any thought before this class, but now I’ve subscribed to the website’s RSS feed. Just in time to get a few articles on J.D Salinger actually.

35. "Annals of the Former World: Assembling California -- II." The New Yorker 68:30 (14 September 1992), 44ff.

From the first page of this article, it seems McPhee has taken an interest in geology and befriended a man by the name of Eldridge Moores, from the University of California. It seems to be relatively close to the time when the theory of the tectonic plates was beginning to form. An attempt is made to relate the excitement of finding the same kind of rock in the desert as is found on the ocean floor. In what, I’m beginning to consider, characteristic of McPhee’s writing, he attempts to educate us in what has been going on in the world of geology and some of their discoveries.

This one doesn’t do it for me though. I guess knowing things like the discovery of whale like fossils in the desert and the fact that all the worlds’ continents were united in one massive continent called Pangaea, left these ideas feeling a little stale. It’s a pretty bold task to attempt to make geology interesting to the mass public, and I’m sure McPhee succeeds further on, but for me, tonight, it doesn’t really grab me.

-Adam Hodnett