[CHAPTER IX]
THE GATHERING OF MATERIAL FOR WRITING
Two main sources exist from which you can get the material for expository themes: books, including magazines and papers; and lectures or interviews of any kind. Libraries differ greatly in the degree of convenience, and some lecturers are much more readily intelligible than others, and their lectures much more easily codified in notes. Even the most conveniently arranged library, with the most accommodating librarian, is rather formidable unless one knows the method of approach. And until one has thought out the problem of taking notes from lectures, even the most intelligible speaker presents great difficulties. Perhaps a few words here will be of some use in unriddling the mysteries.
First of all a word needs to be said about the greatest slavery of modern times—slavery to the printed word. "I read it in a book!" is still for many people sufficient reason for believing anything, however untrue, illogical, impossible it may be. It is well to remember that nearly everybody writes books and yet very few of us are wise. Obviously, not everything can be authoritative, especially when it is contradicted in the next book. A reader without a good steadying sense of balance, a shrewd determination to weigh what he reads and judge of its value for himself is as helpless as a man in a whirlpool. You need not be too stiff-necked toward a book, need not deny for the mere sake of denial, but you do need to stand off and regard every book with reasonable caution. Sometimes you can see for yourself that what is said is not true. Sometimes you can at once feel that the spirit of the book is unsafe, wild, unthinking. Sometimes you will detect at once a blinding prejudice. Then be cautious. If the subject is unknown to you, so that you have no safe basis for judgment about it, you are, to look the matter squarely in the face, at the mercy of the book. But shrewd inquiries as to the author's reputation, his opportunities for knowledge of the subject, and an ever-watchful eye for reasonableness and good judgment, will save you from many mistakes. And always remember that the mere fact of a statement's being in print does not make it more true than it was when merely oral. Don't, then, believe a printed statement which you would hotly deny if you heard it from the lips of some one. It is a matter of intellectual self-respect to read and judge, not to read and blindly swallow.
Whether you read or listen, you will need to make notes. It would be delightful if our flattering feeling that we can remember whatever we read or hear were true—the trouble is, it is not. It is better to play safe and have the record in notes, than to be too independent and find a blank in your mind when time to write arrives.
The chief virtue in note-taking is economy. Economy saves time, space, effort. The three interweave and are inextricable, in the total, but may be somewhat distinguished. As to time: there is no virtue whatever in slaving for hours over notes that need only a few minutes. Notes are tools: their object is temporary, to be of service for composition or future reference; they are not an object in themselves. Do not worship them. On the other hand, since dull tools will not cut, don't slight them. No greater pity can exist than for the pale student who wrinkles her brow—it usually is her brow—and attempts to make of notes a complete transcription of a lecture or a book, with each comma and every letter in proper sequence joined—only to pack the notes away in a box in the attic—or perhaps burn them! A builder who should have too meticulous care for his scaffolding is in danger of never seeing his building completed. Notes seek essentials, and therefore time should not be wasted on non-essentials. But, since slovenly, ill-assorted, illegible notes require extraordinary time for deciphering and arranging, it is of the greatest importance that you conserve your future minutes by making your notes neat, ordered, legible. Any abbreviations that you can surely remember are most useful. A complete sentence—which really has no special need for completeness—that you cannot read is worthless, but a few words that indicate the gist of the thought, and are immediately legible, are most valuable. Moreover, if you take time enough for every word, you are in danger of becoming so engrossed in penmanship as to lose the broad sweep of the lecture or book. Notes must drive toward unity and away from chaos. Your first principle, then, should be to set down neatly what will be of real service, and let the rest go.
As to space—any one who has made manuscripts from notes has learned how irritating, how bewildering a huge mass of material can be. Some subjects require such a mass, and in such a case the note-taker will use as much space as he needs. But economy, which is the cardinal virtue, will require as little diffusion, as great concentration as possible. If you can succeed in including everything of value on one sheet, instead of scattering it over several, you are to be congratulated. Only, be sure that you do not neglect something of real value. You can often save much space and effort and the use of stores of connecting words and phrases if you will indent and subordinate sub-topics so that the eye will show the relation at once. Such practice is admirable mental training, also, for it teaches the listener or reader to keep his brain detached for seeing relationships, for grasping the parts in relation to the whole and to each other. If interesting remarks which do not bear directly upon the main subject attract with sufficient intensity to make record worth while, set them down in brackets, to indicate their nature. Remembering, then, that a concentrated barrage is of more value in attack than scattered fire, use as little space as may suffice for the essentials. That is the second principle.
As to effort, remember that the old sea-captain whose boat was so leaky that he declared he had pumped the whole Atlantic through it on one voyage would have entered port more easily with a better boat. If you do not take time and pains for grouping and ordering as you make your notes, be sure that you will have much pumping to do when the article is to be made. Grouping and ordering require concentration in reading or listening—but there is no harm in that. You ought to be able to write one thing and listen to another at the same time. Watch especially for any indication in a lecture of change in topic. And don't be bothered by the demands of formal rhetoric: if a complete sentence stands in your way, set your foot on it and "get the stuff." And, of course, avoid a feverish desire to set down every word that may be uttered; any one who has seen the notebooks of students in which reports of lectures begin with such records as "This morning, in pursuance of our plan, we shall consider the topic mentioned last time, namely,—etc." become aware of the enormous waste of energy that college students show. Essentials, set down in athletic leanness—that is the ideal.
In taking notes from books, people differ greatly. Some use a separate slip for each note, and much can be said in commendation of this system. Some are able to heap everything together and then divine where each topic is. In any case, strive for economy, catch the "high spots," and as far as possible keep like with like, notes on the same topic together. It is always well, often imperative, to jot down the source of each note, so that you can either verify or later judge of the value in the light of the worth of the source.