Logical Writing (or not)

Dear readers, please bear with me while I sort out some things. By things, I mean schoolwork, which makes up a good portion of the things I have to sort out these days. As if reading about communism\Marxism all the time and having multiple dreams about it isn't enough, I'm now beset by a little book called Being Logical, which, obviously enough, is about logic. We're reading this in english class. When I heard that we were studying logic, my curiosity was aroused. I mean, I've heard of people studying logic, but it's always seemed that logic is one of those things you're born with. You either use it or you don't use it. Some people have more than others. As I began reading the book, though, I found it quite interesting and thought provoking. I can tell a book is making me think when I start fishing for a pencil and paper and feel the compulsive urge to take notes. Now, since I've also finished the reading for the week, I also feel the compulsive urge to rehash the things I've read, write them in my own words, and share them witih whoever will dive in with me. Oh, and please also bear with the fact that this computer isn't letting me "enter" today, so I can't divide everything up into nice, restful paragraphs. I'll probably be paraphrasing the author of Being Logical (Mr. McInerny) and typing out my own ideas too. Logic has a whole lot to do with ideas, reality, and truth. In the part of D.Q. McInerny's book that I've read, he talks about communication, especially writing. I love reading about ideas. I've always, for an unexplainable reason, accidentally capitalized the word "idea" whenever I write it. I like ideas that much. An idea is a picture in our mind. A Simple Idea is a picture that's linked to an actual thing, (like a tree, for instance) and a Complex Idea is a picture that's linked to a series of things (like the idea of going on a vacation is linked to actual things like the beach, a minivan, the mountains, time off, your family, etc.) A whole mess of actual things play into a Complex Idea and have to work together. In order to communicate our ideas to people, we have to use words. The goal of communication is to get other people to picture in their minds the same thing we picture in ours. We want to understand each other. If the idea I'm trying to communicate is just "tree," then I can say "tree," and you would probably get the picture. Usually, being an *ahem* sophisticated highschooler, I like to communicate more complex ideas like, maybe, (forget the family vacation thing) "my Christian friends in India." I want you to understand the love and servantheartedness of the friends I made in India this summer, but this is something you have never seen. In order to communicate this idea to you, I have to link it to ideas already familiar to you (cooking meals, smiles, washing clothes, foot washing, poverty, the Bible, preaching God's word, language barrier.) If there is an idea you are unfamiliar with (say footwashing, for instance-- where a person washes someone elses feet as a symbol of serving and honoring them) then I would need to start with explaining that idea to get to explaining the Big Idea. Explaining ideas clearly is the responsibility of the writer. Not only should I explain my idea(s) clearly out of consideration for you, the reader, but I should also explain them clearly if I want you to understand (or even read) what I'm saying. Poor you. Sadly, I don't have a very clear idea of the idea you have in your mind of my ideas...so you'll have to be the judge of whether this is clear writing or not :) So, the process of explaining an idea could be this: 1. Identify the idea you are trying to get across 2. Dtermine who your audience is and what they already know or are familiar with about your idea 3. Identify the Simple ideas your main idea is based on 4. Start explaining the idea(s) from the point where the audience's knowledge stops 5. Explain your idea until the audience sees same picture (as best they can) that you see. It's something like an artist painting a picture. They sketch a little, then paint, a stroke here, a swipe there-- but you don't see the whole picture until the painting is done. Ok, well, I'm tired of not being able to make paragraphs, so I guess I'll finish on another post. Bye.