• Abandoning the transparent appeal to disembodied reason in favor of an appeal to embodied responsiveness, artistic writing invites readers into a conversation. In contrast to transparent writing, which assumes that careful, clear appeals to logic and evidence will persuade any reader who is both rational and committed to truth, artistic writing assumes that readers may miss what is distinctively at issue in certain contexts if they rely on universalistic argumentation and analysis. Working through vivid, particularistic description and discussion, artistic writing offers an invitation into a particular way of seeing the world. In Melissa Moreno’s words, artistic writing encourages readers to linger in the kind of moment that transparent writing often passes over or dismisses.

• In contrast to transparent writing, which aspires to a common language or lingua franca that transcends any specific context, artistic writing reflects a local, cultural, and often personal engagement with the issues it addresses. As in the case of transparent writing, this may or may not include an explicitly political focus.

• Artistic writing attempts to craft a certain complexity of meaning that cannot be fully explicated or analyzed, because its quality is in part a matter of form, rhythm, juxtaposition, engagement, and response — the experience of the journey. Like a rich conversation that cannot be distilled into main points without losing some of its distinctive richness of insight and engagement, the well-crafted artistic essay is more than the sum of its parts.

Organization and Structure

• Artistic scholarly writing does not approach meaning-making in point-driven terms. Whereas in transparent writing the main ideas can effectively be summarized as principles or thesis statements, in artistic writing the meaning resides in how readers respond to ideas. Meaning is not literal but experiential. Reading transparent scholarly writing involves apprehending or absorbing ideas; the writer’s task is to convey ideas as compactly, efficiently, and effectively as possible. By contrast, reading artistic scholarship involves a journey; the writer’s task is to engage the reader in the work of revisiting ideas. As a result, a paper written in the artistic tradition will not necessarily begin with a clear, bold statement as to what it is “about.” Instead, like a biography or novel, it will try to set the tone and to show what is at stake. The opening paragraphs should invite the reader into a discussion that promises to be interesting and rewarding. The first thing to ask of an artistic paper, therefore, is: what is the nature of the promise offered in the first few pages?

• Although artistic writing is not point-driven, it may well have a thesis statement. Providing a thesis statement helps keep your purpose in front of you and also may help transparent readers understand what to expect (which is not the same as their understanding what is expected of them). Indeed, an artistic writer may want to make several concessions to the transparent tradition; it is quite common to have hybrid artistic-transparent essays. Look for a thesis statement, a statement of purpose, or a statement of what is at stake — a statement as to why the essay was written.

• Not only will most artistic writing have a foil but the foil is likely to be far more vivid and dramatic than is the case in most transparent essays. (Exceptions in artistic writing may include essays that provide an analysis as opposed to an argument.) In transparent writing, a great deal of authority is given to the self-evidence of the writer’s arguments and data; as a result, the foil need not play a large role in the argument. (It may play a large role — as when writers engage in a point-by-point refutation of another position — but it doesn’t have to. The transparent author may choose simply to focus on the superiority of her or his own position.) In artistic writing, however, the emphasis is not on self-evidence but on appreciating a point of view that tends to be undervalued — a perspective that, under the terms of prevailing commonsense views, does not have self-evident value. (It need not be a suppressed or renegade point of view; for example, it might involve a defense of the humanities, taking as its foil the assumption that education must serve the interests of nationalism. This is not an exotic or countercultural stance, but it does offer a challenge to one dimension of mainstream thought.) Because the author is usually challenging some form of “self-evidence,” she or he is likely to play up the drama of contrast in order to demonstrate what is at stake. In your own writing, make sure that the foil is as definite and distinctive as possible. It should not represent a vague threat; it should be powerful and present. The reader is supposed to come to share the author’s concern.

• The structure of artistic essays may be web-like rather than linear, creating nodes or points of resonance; it might be conversational or narrative; it might suggest a mosaic, a painting, or a piece of music; it might have a call-and-response or other traditional oral pattern; often, it will invite the reader on a journey. Since the form of the piece is integral to its and your construction of meaning, determining which metaphor best captures the structure of a particular artistic essay can help you see how you are expected to read it.

• Some artistic writing is open-ended, some more didactic. If a particular lesson is being imparted, ask yourself how well suited the artistic style is to that lesson. If the argument or analysis is somewhat open-ended, ask yourself how the artistic approach informs and shapes your response to the argument or analysis.

• Artistic writing is cohesive rather than fragmentary. Unlike transgressive writing, which deliberately interrupts and problematizes coherence, artistic writing has a definite shape. Readers should have a sense of how things hang together and why the author has put things in one place rather than another. Although the “logic” of artistic writing may be a matter of shape or rhythm or progress on a journey rather than rational argumentation, there is still an organizing principle at stake. In your own writing, be prepared to reorganize sections if they don’t make sense and to eliminate sections that detract from or confuse the coherence of the piece. This doesn’t mean that your writing cannot be complex; the organization does not have to reduce to a single theme. It might specifically intertwine two themes, play variations on a theme, or juxtapose two or three voices. But the reader should understand why both or all of these parts in the essay; they should form an organic whole.

Development

• Artistic scholarship relies on a certain richness and vividness to bring readers into the readerly experience. This doesn’t mean that artistic writing conforms to any particular type; it might be clipped and Hemingwayish, brisk and Austenish, austere, florid, intimate, wry, or sultry, for example. The point is only that you cannot expect sweeping claims or glancing summaries about what you mean to stand in for specific details that will bring your meaning home to a reader. The job of artistic writing is to wake readers up to specific considerations that may be overlooked in more universalizing approaches. This means that you need to develop your insights to the point where they register vividly with readers.

• If a writer spends a lot of time developing a point, assume that it is important. Even if you can’t see that it matters, it must, or the author would not make it focal. Think about what connections that section bears to other sections of the paper. Ask yourself why the author includes particular details, especially if they do not seem all that significant to you. It may be that you need to read them in a different light or in a more sympathetic vein. Of course, it may simply be that the author has not bothered to edit his work or has been self-indulgent, but you can’t necessarily tell that on a first reading. It may not be until your second or third reading that you can decide whether a particular passage is irrelevant to the text.

• In your own artistic writing, be careful not to assume that your writing is immediately and unproblematically accessible to all readers. Since the whole point is that artistic writing is not transparent, you may need to help teach readers how to work with you. Not every reader will know how to read and respond to what you are saying. Give them as much help as you can. You might, for example, provide signposts showing where you are going; revisit points to further explore their complexity; use metaphors to shape meaning; fill out points that might be ambiguous to some readers; give readers hints about how to follow the structure of your essay; and either explain or spend extra time on material that is culturally specific. You also may want to use certain transparent tools (including definitions, thesis statements, summary statements) to help readers crystallize what they have been reading. Finally, you may need to change, sharpen, or further shape your tone. If you inadvertently sound authoritative or sarcastic or uncertain when you don’t mean to, you need to rework those moments. If you sound as if you might be ironic but then again you might not, you will want to clarify your tone so that readers know how to read what you’re saying.

Voice

• The distinctiveness of the authorial voice varies in both artistic and transparent writing. In artistic writing, however, there is always a voice, whereas in transparent writing it is common for the author to adopt a seemingly neutral, impersonal, and uninvested tone. Even when the transparent writer’s tone is passionate, the points being made are separable from the voice. Take out the sarcasm or sympathy — the points are still the same. In artistic writing, by contrast, the authorial voice is part of the meaning being made. Readers must want to engage with that way of seeing the world before they can accompany the writer on his journey. Although the author’s voice might sound calm, trustworthy, and reasonable, it will not sound impersonal. It need not sound intensely personal, let alone confessional, but it will sound like someone’s voice.

• For the transparent writer, language is almost mathematical: it is meant to be as precise and objective as possible, and as universally accessible. The transparent writer searches for the exact word that matches the meaning she intends — the word that will convey her meaning without ambiguity, confusion, or vagueness. For artistic writers, precision is also important, but it is a qualitative rather than mathematical precision. The artistic writer looks for language that will resonate powerfully with readers. She is concerned less to capture than to evoke meaning. Her writing thus has more of the quality of conversation than of explication: it is less about telling than about showing, less about pinning down meaning than about inviting what Maxine Greene calls “wide-awakeness” to what is at stake in particular situations. For the artistic writer, language is a tool to help work towards understanding what matters; she thus does not search for language that matches her interpretation but gropes for language that will help her shape meaning. As in transparent writing, clarity is important, but it is a different kind of clarity. The reader is to be pulled into a distinctive way of seeing things, and unless that readerly experience is sharp and vivid, it will not be effective.

Style and Aesthetics

• Artistic writing depends to a large extent on the reader’s pleasure in the text. Because the reader has to stay with the author through the conversation or journey, has to respond to the text, and has to do work to make meaning of his experience, he should be able to take pleasure in the experience. Just as listening to a story or a joke or a piece of music should be engaging in an immediate way, not something we do because it is good for us or because we expect to “get something out of it” in the end, reading artistic scholarship should be an aesthetic experience. In your own work, ask yourself what detracts from or enhances this experience.

• The style of the artistic writer is organic to the kinds of meaning she can make. It is not an added flourish or a “signature” but the register in which meaning is made. For this reason, it is important not to strike the wrong note. If your overall tone is modest and understated, a melodramatic quote or metaphor is going to sound jarring. If, on the other hand, your style is flamboyant, exuberant, and over-the-top, a mild and self-effacing moment is going to sound false.

Editing Exercises for Artistic Scholarly Papers (Your Own or Others’)

• See if you can cut at least one unnecessary word from each paragraph.
• Circle words or phrases that are repeated in close proximity. This does not include words like “the” and “and.” The words and phrases to worry about are the ones that readers will notice if used twice in succession. This does include words like “however” and “moreover” used in the same paragraph.
• Identify one word or phrase on each page that could be replaced with something more vivid, more precise, or more economical. Sometimes seven words can be boiled down to one word that jumps off the page; in some contexts, a word like “become” or “develop” will be too vague and will need to be replaced with something more exact.
• Not every word should be vivid, however. Circle any words that have the effect of exclamation marks and that detract from the smoothness of the writing.
• Ask yourself what the shape or structure of the essay is and how the reader is cued as to that structure. Does this need to be clarified or accentuated?
• See if a sentence in the middle of the paragraph should be moved up to the head of the paragraph. Consider whether a story or example or claim should be brought forward in the paper.
• Artistic writers write in a distinctive tone or register. Identify passages that seem to slip in and out of the author’s voice or that are at variance with the dominant mood.
• Identify any clichés, tired metaphors, or overly obvious phrases.
• Mark sentences that might benefit from shortening or from a different structure. Writers need to vary their rhythms so that not every sentence starts with “As so-and-so says,” or “The subject followed by the verb.” By moving a clause up front, writers can interrupt the rat-tat-tat effect of using too many short, declarative sentences in a row. Too many complex-compound sentences in a row also have a numbing effect. They should be broken up with short, simple sentences.
• Identify what is at stake in the paper. Is there a statement of purpose or thesis statement? How does the author use narrative or other artistic devices to create an awareness of what is at stake? Does this effect need to be bolstered or heightened?
• What is the foil? Is the foil vivid, even dramatic? Or is it vague and generic?
• Is the authorial voice consistent? How does it work? How, for example, does the author’s voice engender trust? Does anything in the voice or the text interfere with the reader’s trust of the author?
• How does the author invite readers in? Can this invitation be enhanced? Does anything interfere with it? For example, does the autobiographical voice become too self-indulgent at points? Does the humor become too arch or fall flat? Does the description of a place or person lose its connection to the essay and become description for its own sake?