Without Details, There Would Be No You!

Does a deployed member of the military have the same experiences as a McDonalds worker? What about someone who came from a bad part of Chicago compared to someone who grew up in the country? Students come from many backgrounds and have such different experiences in life. These differences cause students to attain different skills in life as well as writing, which can make it difficult for teaching. So the question is what do you teach in college classrooms. Stanley Fish answers with his opinion as he wrote the article “What should colleges teach?” which was published by the New York Times. This article states that students are coming into college without knowing basic writing skills. According to Fish, the most important skill that needs to be learned is sentence structure. He states in his article, “Basically, there is only one thing to be learned, that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships; everything else follows.” But who is Fish? Why is his opinion important? His opinion came from experience as a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University, in Miami. He has also taught at other universities including the University of California at Berkley and Duke University and is the author of 15 books.

I do agree with Fish that teaching sentence structure is important in writing, but I have come to find out that is not the only important skill college writing requires. I had the opportunity to observe tutoring sessions at the Ohio State University at Newark Writer's Studio. During this time, I spent 8 weeks observing sessions between a student and his tutor, which gave me great insight on what college writing really is. I actually used these sessions to write my own paper on what college level writing is, which lead me to discover details are a very important factor in writing.

Fish does bring up details in one specific way when he is, “asking students to turn a three-word sentence like “Jane likes cake” into a 100-word sentence without losing control of the basic structure and then explain, word-by-word, clause-by-clause, what they did." This shows that details would be added but should not change the sentence's form. Details are important in the sense of understanding how to structure a sentence properly, but there are so many more aspects to details! Details can impact writing in multiple ways, from giving you a very descriptive view of an image allowing you to visualize it yourself, to giving you specific facts on any particular item.

There is no way you could visualize this picture without
including descriptive details.

Descriptive details carry a major role in a writer's paper as it encourages the reader to use their imagination and visualize what you are describing. For example, what if I just told you I would include a picture of fish staring at worms on a hook? You would not be able to grasp the see the little details included in the picture which gives it the importance, or in this case, the comedy behind it.

There are other types of details that should be taught in classrooms that play a role in writing, such as facts. Facts actually play a major role in any type of writing as it brings credibility to your view and your paper as a whole. Would you believe that one of the greatest baseball players ever, Babe Ruth, only made $80,000 a year at his best, when a steroid using Alex Rodriguez made $33,000,000? I would not be able to explain any of this to you without facts.

All of these examples I have provided to you have allowed you to relate what I am trying to convey regarding details. The examples themselves are a form of details! These examples allow you to take the abstract ideas I am talking about and transform them into concrete images.


Ross was always very detailed with his paintings,
from his happy trees to correcting mistakes by creating birds.

Do you remember the painter Bob Ross who was famous for painting his "happy trees" on TV? He was very detailed with his paintings, making them look very similar to a photograph. If you do not remember him, I have included an example of his painting. On the other hand, anecdotes provide you with the personal experience from others, which allows you to relate to the topic. Anecdotes are part of your everyday life; think about the conversations you have had today. How could Fish only want to teach sentence structure when there are so many other important aspects to writing?

Although Fish did have it right that sentence structure is a key skill in developing a college level writer, there are so many other skills required. What about the importance of the thesis statement, Mr. Fish? Understanding how to research, how to analyze what the author's message is saying, and understanding the expectations of the different teachers are only a few other examples of important aspects of writing that should be taught. All of these writing skills are important, but the key behind every outstanding paper is always found in the smallest of details. Can you imagine living your life without details? Hey Fish, can you pick up my monkey from Petland tomorrow at 1pm? Without details this would just say, Hey, can you go for me?