Summary/Evaluation of Wayne C. Booth’s "What Is an Idea?"

TO: Dr. Dillon

FROM: Ernesto G. Ventura, III

DATE: 18 July 2006

SUBJECT: Summary/Evaluation of Wayne C. Booth’s "What Is an Idea?"

THESIS

2 The use of the word “idea” in everyday casual talk isn’t as well-defined as it is in serious, scholarly conversations.

MAIN POINTS

Most of the time, people use the word idea to express their “intent”, “belief”, or “mental picture.”

3 The various uses of the word "idea" are totally proper in their respective contexts. The same word may have distinct meaning depending on its place in the sentence.

In almost every case, these different uses show convergent meanings, not contradictions.

4 There exist three factors that separate an idea from other forms of mental commodity

1. An idea is inseparable to other ideas leading, following, or supporting it. No idea is standalone.

2. From one idea, others can be developed. Other than having their origins, they also bring forth new ones.

3. An idea can be complex as it never posses a single absolute meaning. It always needs to be interpreted and discussed.

5 It doesn’t matter whether you are pro or against any argument, the sure thing is that unparallel points of view about the issue will open multitude of positions.

6 Of course, there are several kinds of mental products that do not comply with the above criterion.

7 Much of our typical notions, thought, and intuitions aren’t quite considered as idea yet.

Provided suitable changes and tweaks are made, some opinions may be transformed into ideas, but since their present formats are just lightly relevant to other ideas, they can’t yet be considered as ideas. The presence of emotion-driven generalizations with no logical reasoning or proof is a clue that mindless opinion is presented, not scholarly idea.

8 An adequate education is one in ideas- not solely committing them into memory, but learning to deal with them, evaluating them, studying commonalities, accepting new arguments, & returning for a closer look.

9 The eagerness to write well obligates our thoughts be clear.

10 Writing urges us to accumulate ideas in a more systematic fashion, even better than when we speak.

For a writing to be powerful, all fundamental rules must be followed with great emphasis, carefulness, & clarity.

11 Amateur writers usually are guilty of thinking that they have a better understanding about their ideas than their words.

When a writer feels he or she is running out of words, words aren’t usually the problem alone. Writing rookies tend to think they need to memorize all entries in the dictionary when what they really need are precise & accurate understanding of ideas & intentions.

As soon as you have your meaning well-defined, the words necessary to express it will come to you. You may modify words later as your brain generates more information, but no writer may claim possession of an idea until he can provide the words to express it.

CONCLUSION

12 Athletes require power in the same way writers demand ideas. Possession of ideas does not give the assurance of better writing, but they are the main ingredient in all good writings.

Evaluation

1 As a photography enthusiast, writing about digital imaging will likely interest me but writing about the Peruvian economy will surely bore me. When I am assigned to write about a subject I know nothing about, chances are I will have a difficult time all throughout the writing process generating thoughts to write.

2 I am an Electrical Engineering student and most of my engineering courses demand writing laboratory & experiment reports regularly. There are times when writing is hard even all the necessary information gathered & relevant data collected. My personal experience suggests that such difficulties are due to mental & physical reasons. Learning new theories and doing experiments can cause too much thinking & can easily drain ones energy.

3 English being my tertiary language, writing is very challenging to me. The absence of handy references such as a dictionary and/or a thesaurus will significantly downgrade the quality of my writing. I can still remember when I wrote my very first essay for English 101, I was so excited to write about the story of my migration from the Philippines to the United States thinking I can finish it quickly until I began to write & found myself struggling for words and I didn’t know what to say.

4 The world is full of mysterious things and not all “matter” [anything occupying space and has mass] have been named nor defined. Until the day we got “them” all named, it is very possible that someone may notice something he or she can’t put into words. That’s why the words like undefined, indeterminate, & indescribable exist.

5 "I know what I want to say; I just can't find the words for it." I’ve said that phrase before. After reading Wayne C. Booth’s "What Is an Idea?” I still believe that phrase is legitimate. With that notion, I disagree with Booth’s explanation of the phenomenon commonly described as "writer’s block".

6 The first example I gave says that boredom about the subject may be a cause of writer’s block. Booth didn’t mention anything about it in his examples.

7 The second and third example I provided portrays that having all information gathered & data collected serve no guarantee that writing about them will be without difficulty. This is contrary to Booth’s argument that as soon as you have your meaning well-defined, the words necessary to express it will come to you. I performed the experiments & I was writing about my own personal story. Is booth telling me I don’t have my meaning well defined? I don’t think so!

8 My final example contradicts Booth’s belief that idea and words go together all the time. Since not all “matter” have universal names, I believe one may claim possession of an idea without the need to put them into words. To solidify this reasoning even better, let us consider visual aids such as traffic lights. Our ancestors are smart enough to use green, yellow & red lights to regulate traffic control systems. These visual aids contain no letter at all but common to those who invent & implemented this system and to all of us, pedestrians & drivers, is the idea that the red, green, and yellow lights MEAN stop, go, and warning respectively.

9 In conclusion, I would like to quote Wikipedia’s article about idea:

“An idea is a specific thought which arises in the mind. The human capacity to generate ideas is associated with the capacity for reason and self-reflection. Ideas give rise to concepts, which are the basis for any kind of knowledge whether science or philosophy. However, in a popular sense, an idea can arise even when there is no serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place.”

THE END