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Why E-mail is not Writing
- University Press of New England
- Chapter
- Additional Information
73 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p whye-mailisnotwriting I remember once reading an article in a newspaper or magazine in which the writer rejoiced that American students, long lamented for their deteriorating writing skills, were now welling with promise because of e-mail. “It’s a new literary renaissance,” the writer gushed. My response: Baloney. When Jack Kerouac published On the Road, which he had written on a roll of toilet paper, Truman Capote famously sniffed, “That’s not writing, it’s typing.” With respect to e-mail, those are my sentiments exactly. In the strict mechanical sense, of course e-mail is writing, if one defines writing merely as lining up symbols to convey a message . But if writing is defined as an art form or a skill that must be developed and honed, then e-mail is anything but. If e-mail were truly writing in this sense, then the professorial directive, “Write a story about such and such” could easily be replaced by, “Send me an e-mail about such and such.” I don’t think I would bristle so if the evidence against e-mail as literature weren’t staring me in the face. I’d like to put the ducks of my argument in a straight line. As preamble, one must agree to define writing as a skill or art rather than a simple mechanical act, in the same way that baseball is much more than just swinging a bat. Okay? Let’s go. Point number one. Writing is about structure. Essays have their themes or premises; short stories and novels have their plots; poetry has its music and cadence; and non-fiction marches forward in some logical narrative fashion, sometimes with a counterpoint of argument and evidence. The question being begged then, is, where is e-mail’s structure? The 74 p o u r c o m m o n t o n g u e answer is that there is no one form that one must bear in mind while writing an e-mail and which defines it as a genre. E-mail is more like a garage sale. See for yourself: example #1: Hey Dude: c-u @ 4. u gt the note? (lol) :)—Butch example #2: Dear Adam: Where shall I begin? I don’t like writing e-mails, but you leave me little choice, since you won’t anser [sic] the phone. I thought I knew you, but when I saw you with Crystal Jakobowski down in the gravel pit I realized that I didn’t really know you at all. why don”t you pick up the phone when i call??!!—Debbie example #3: To All Colleagues in the College of Arts & Sciences: The meeting to discuss the budget for the new fiscal year will include a new agenda item: whether to put the new sidewalk on the Goins Hall side of campus or on the side where the salt shed is located. This promises to be a very exciting meeting, so please plan to attend. Refreshments will be served. E-mail clearly has no defining form; therefore it is not writing. Point number two. E‑mail, being electronic, is not perceived as real. The result: sloppiness. When the Sumerians used a stylus to press cuneiform into clay tablets, that was real. When someone uses a pen to put wet ink on paper, that is real. Braille is real. But what exactly are those illuminated letters on a computer monitor? Not only can we not feel them, not only do they not smear or stain our fingers, but with the touch of the “delete” key we can make them disappear . E-mail is cheap to produce, requires little effort (no paper [107.23.85.179] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 02:06 GMT) Why E‑Mail Is Not Writing p 75 to fold, no stamps to lick, etc.), and conveys the sense that once the “send” key is pushed the “message” somehow evaporates into that ether occupied by the universal dust and unmatched socks. Because of this ethereal quality, we tend to be sloppy with e-mail. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that sloppiness is the defining quality of e-mail. But sloppiness is precisely what one seeks to avoid in real writing. Therefore, e-mail is not writing. Point number three. Who edits e‑mail? The business of writing is rewriting...