Introductory Reading Assignment

Starting in my early high school days, I thought that right after graduation in June of 2016, I will never have to write an essay ever again since I was traveling on the path of an engineer. Even on the path of an engineer, little did I know that a few years later I would realize that I will be writing for the rest of my life. This course will help me enhance my communication skills on paper, a skill I have been struggling to develop over the past few years. The field of engineering is especially reliant on communication since one must collaborate with others in order to innovate. The only reason I would not take this course is if I wanted to slightly accelerate my engineering curriculum, but from my experiences in a summer research internship, communication skills in the modern world are crucial.

When The New Humanities Reader suggests using writing as a way of, “...thinking new thoughts,” I believe that it is arguing that writing gives one an opportunity to record ideas in a medium other than the human mind, and that new medium gives new meaning to the writing. I argue that we can think more clearly when we consistently put our ideas down on paper. The text says that, “...we live in a world defined by possibilities, and possibilities go hand in hand with risk and unintended consequences.” In the context of the The New Humanities Reader, this quote serves to give writing a role in helping society avoid “unintended consequences” through improved communication and thought processes. Some the text predicts  that may occur as a result of writing range from the next Renaissance to the next Dark Age.

The text seems to define a “shared horizon” as the expanse of human knowledge that is constantly being expanded by the communication of our readings. This term paired with another interesting term from the text, “prospective writing,” (to write with the goal of looking for a larger meaning behind the writing) tells us that we, no matter our discipline, are aiming to share the knowledge with the world in order to help it progress. Terms like these make The New Humanities Reader a trailblazer of sorts for writing in the modern world, at least compared to my humanities textbooks in high school. The text makes writing not only a means of communication, but also a way to generate thoughts and make the future occur in the present. Such a way to put a perspective on writing makes it an essential skill in the modern world.