[MD] 1961 Paper - "Quality in Freshman Writing"

[Michael Hamilton]

Lookie what I just found:

"Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego.
You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything
at all. Often this, rather than "laziness," is the real reason you
find it hard to get started. This gumption trap of anxiety, which
results from overmotivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of
excessive fussiness. You fix things that don't need fixing, and chase
after imaginary ailments."

"When beginning a repair job you can list everything you're going to
do on little slips of paper which you then organize into proper
sequence. You discover that you organize and then reorganize the
sequence again and again as more and more ideas come to you. The time
spent this way usually more than pays for itself in time saved on the
machine and prevents you from doing fidgety things that create
problems later on."

High time I tried this.

Mike

On 12/6/06, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael at gmail.com> wrote:
> First off, big thanks to Ian for getting hold of this, and thanks also
> to Bob, if he's reading this, for supplying it!
>
> I'd been wondering if this piece would show some kind of different
> perspective from ZMM and Lila - after all, this is the first thing
> we've seen written by the "Phaedrus" of ZMM, before
> insanity/enlightenment and the electrodes... but on first reading,
> this doesn't seem to be the case. The crucial passage from ZMM about
> the "many marvellous analogues" etc is there just the same. This whole
> part of ZMM about teaching quality and the subsequent waves of
> crystallisation was always the part that blew me away, so it's useful
> to have it against in a slightly different and more self-contained
> form.
>
> Anyway, I hadn't asked to see this paper with the intention of prying
> into the development of Phaedrus's psyche or whatever... I asked to
> see it because I'm now a university first-year, and struggling to
> write. Academic essays, though. Not creative composition. But perhaps
> the difference between the two isn't so great. If rotisserie assemply
> is a form of sculpture, then writing an essay is easily a form of
> creative composition. There's no single way of doing it, it's a craft.
>
> I've written lots of essays before, but I've always been uneasy with
> the process of writing, and it was getting more and more tortuous. To
> be honest, even writing this involves annoying levels of
> self-criticism, rather than being a simple, honest flow of
> consciousness. This is a big gumption trap, no doubt about it. Or
> perhaps it stems from a lack of gumption at the outset. Dunno.
>
> One thing I am sure of: education would be a much better experience
> for everyone if all teachers (at any level) read this paper.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
> On 12/6/06, ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Dan,
> >
> > I've only fully read it myself today, and I have to say that despite
> > Bob's warning, there is a lot in it that does not appear in ZMM,
> > and/or is expressed quite differently. Some interesting reading for
> > the scholars.
> >
> > Regards
> > Ian
> >
> > On 12/6/06, Dan Glover <daneglover at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Ian
> > >
> > > Thank you for sharing!
> > >
> > > Dan
> > >
> > > >From: "ian glendinning" <psybertron at gmail.com>
> > > >Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > > >To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > > >Subject: [MD] 1961 Paper - "Quality in Freshman Writing"
> > > >Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 08:43:42 -0600
> > > >
> > > >As requested earlier by Michael Hamilton, here is a copy of
> > > >Pirsig's 1961 paper "Quality in Freshman Writing".
> > >
> > >
> > > moq_discuss mailing list
> > > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > > Archives:
> > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
> > >
> > moq_discuss mailing list
> > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > Archives:
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
> >
>