Friday, November 30, 2007

Short Essay or Long Essays

As they say, damned if you do, damned you don’t.

If you write an all inclusive essay that incorporates all human and metaphysical knowledge into a System that answers all things and provides all Knowledge and reconciles to all Wisdom, but it takes more than 200 words, then you are derided as being a boring windbag. But if you are brief and don’t completely nail down the entire physical and spiritual universe, then you are called stupid. Like I said, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The answer is “Moderation in all things”. For an introduction, simply make your assertive point. What are you going to present? For the relatively short body of your essay simply state the bare outline of your evidence. If anybody takes the bait… that is, if anybody pursues your Thread, then you can expand on your evidence. But you do not want to drown people with detail all at once. Perhaps there is no wiser aphorism than to not give one’s advise until it is asked for.

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