The study of the liberal arts is sometimes referred to as a formal education. We are inclined to think, no doubt, that a formal education means one which has its procedures and protocols, methodically concluding in an established ceremony of some sort that recognizes the prescribed achievement. The term formal, however, includes another meaning, as, for example, when we refer to a formal analysis or a formal ruler, one that has to do with the structure or appearance of something, not with the actual content or person. In the same way, we speak of having to fill out a form, a grid that will capture information, but which has no content of its own.
All of this has something directly to do with writing, and specifically with the task of revising a draft. We should first remind ourselves that it can be very helpful to divide the work of composition into two parts, drafting and revising. Drafting is what turns a blank screen or piece of paper into a random-seeming collection of sentences; it is often an exploratory effort in which we are sniffing and snuffing out ideas, putting our thoughts down in any way we discover them, often rough and ready and unkempt. And if we then go directly to changing this word to that word, moving this sentence here and that one there, we are merely rearranging what we have unearthed, rather than seeing what formal structure might account for the text we have drafted. Form here means the order and connection of discovered ideas.
Drafting, therefore, almost never stands as a final composition. For most of us, we must draft to revise, and those two tasks involve very different frames of mind. While we explore and draft, we are to say yes to every thought that might take shape, however fragmentary and however incomplete. When we then revise, however, we turn our mental energy in a different direction and more critically say yes to some sentences we have written and no to others. Critical revision is a demanding skill because it believes that what we say must find its fitting form—form as appearance and structure. To revise is to look for the architecture that supports the complex of ideas we are presenting to our readers.
Here’s an example of how a formal analysis of a draft can produce a better revision. First, the draft:
I needed a contractor to look at my new house before I purchased it and it is difficult to find someone who has the experience I can trust. I asked a lot of people for names and I finally ended up with a person who did a good job for me.
In looking for the underlying form, we keep just the basic elements of grammar and composition in mind: sentence and clause, subject and predicate. This particular draft comprises two sentences, the first composed of five clauses (I needed, I purchased, it is, who has, and I can), and the second composed of three (I asked, I ended up, and who did). That total of two sentences and eight clauses is intended to have a rational purpose, to bring the reader to a conclusion that has resulted from certain causes and conditions presented cleanly in an additive order. We are analyzing the passage, in other words, to determine whether its ideas have direction, whether they are relevant, and if so, whether they are lined up for the reader to sum quickly.
Such is not the case in this example. The first two clauses of the first sentence launch out strongly (in the past tense) with the situation at hand, naming the need and the reason for it. Instead of building on one of those ideas, however, the draft introduces (now in the present tense) the irrelevant idea of the difficulty in finding someone to do the job, and this balloons the sentence in another direction with three more clauses which do not gather to a specific point. The second sentence returns the statement to earth, but the plurality of names diffuses the focus and blurs the picture.
With a formal analysis of sentences and clauses, we can now see how to better the same set of ideas. Here’s a possible revision:
I met with a contractor last week to inspect a house I want to purchase. On the recommendation of a friend, I found someone whose experience I judged I could trust, and he met my expectations with a detailed and thorough report.
This version begins with the same two ideas, but it cuts to the chase of meeting instead of needing to meet a contractor while deleting the adjectives my and new as ambiguously redundant. The original idea of how difficult it is to find someone trustworthy has been incorporated into the draft idea of obtaining a recommendation, and then follows up immediately with the result. Finally, the actual reason why the person is said to have done a good job is substituted for this otherwise vague and general statement, and that brings a conclusive energy to the entire picture.
We know how to better our writing when we know the purpose and relative position of the elements we have drafted: if I mention this idea, how does it stem from what I have just said and how does it engender what I will next say? Questions like those constitute a formal analysis because they look for an answer ultimately to the structure, the architecture, of what we have drafted, and then to the content. We do not make the ideas we want to express, we discover them; and we discover too that they are all of an organic whole. And that is just how a formal education proceeds, worrying to see the structure, the how, of our thinking, and then about its content, the what. To do otherwise is to risk running willy-nilly, grabbing at this or that idea in the hope that a pastiche will produce an ordered composition. Rarely.
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