The idea of writing a blog of my own arose for a simple reason: to document ideas that “abruptly” popped into my mind and might leave in the next second. Throughout my academic career, I wrote a lot of academic papers but I had limited chances of doing what I really wanted, i.e. going back to the origin of writing and using writing to follow my heart. Now in graduate school, I finally have the ability and time to, instead of for task completion, use writing to communicate with my inner heart and share my ideas, joys, sorrows, and frustrations with the outer world. I am not a professional writer, and I believe that my writing could be rough in many places. However, I am happy that I finally have the space to be myself in the form of writing, which I think is the most important.
Writing, Writer, and I
My early story
I was born and raised in China, where I lived my first 18 years. My interest in writing started in high school, which came as a side product of my interest in Chinese history and ancient Chinese poems. I had constantly been at bottom in my literature and writing classes before high school, but sometimes the life turning point just arrived at one moment of your life.
Ten years have passed since then, and I have dropped my old interests in Chinese. However, if one thing I had learned from that period, it was that language is created for communications and is neither mythical nor advanced. The language of a society reveals its culture. The ways we speak and write shed light on what we agree on as a group. On another side, even the coldest and formalist texts, such as law terms, resides emotions. For example, the Constitution is written to maintain a balance between personal freedom and public power and that at least for Framers, personal privacy (of White males) is paramountly important, as reflected in the first few Amendments. Perhaps these characteristics of language is what led me to my current path in social science and public policy.
We who write
In Chinese, the word writer/作家 is often perceived negatively because writers are commonly regarded as the acronym for novelists, which in a lot of people’s impressions, are irremediable idealists who make little contribution to society. For a society like China where science and technology are encouraged by the government, people are skeptical about what stories can do: can stories save lives or boost the nation’s GDP?
Moreover, in the age of internet, the threshold of writing is low enough that the amount of low-quality writings explode and the myth is on interet, everyone can write and everyone knows how to write. people then began to wonder, if that is the case, why do we need professional writers? Do they write better words or are they smarter than us? When those questions come up, writers as a group earns negative reputations and their social statuses fall accordingly.
However, writers are more than novelists. Are people who write autobiographies writers? What about people who write game reviews, people who do strategic communication or people who report authentic news? Despite we give these people different names in both Chinese and English (autobiographers, freelance game writers, and strategic communication specialists), they are all writers, should we follow the macro and dictionary meaning of this word - “people who write”. I always think that the field of writing is vast, gorgeous, and magnificent as writing could be as small as chats between friends and as grand as omnibus bills that are usually a few thousand pages long. It is also useful because regardless of occupations, we rely on words to communicate. My technical writing professor in my undergrad school loves to say technical writing is an art. However, it is not only technical writing that is an art. All forms of writing are. We need writers because we live in a world with words.
How I got into writing
My passion for technical and policy writing sprouted when I was a sophomore (at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities). That was the year when I started volunteering with a nonprofit organization named Communities United Against Police Brutality (aka, CUAPB). In one project, I worked with the group to investigate the police killing of Mr. Thurman Blevins in Minnesota. I went to the organization every Thursday night to discuss with Ms.Gross, the founder of the organization, and other volunteers, conduct research on matters that were of significance to this case, and support the writing of our investigation report, which was later handed to the lawyer representing the Blevins family and used in the court. When the project wrapped up and the report was final, the whole workgroup went to dinner together during which we talked about how the report could be a weapon to bring justice to the victim’s family. At that moment, I suddenly felt so proud. That was the first time I helped an organization write an evidence-based report, and knowing my work would pay off made me happy. I realized that writing could be so beautiful and useful.
Many things happened after that year. I continued volunteering with the organization in my free time (until I graduated from U of M and left the city), and my interest in writing continued. I took more social science classes, read a lot more research articles and case briefs, and continuously found the diversity and usefulness of writing. For example, research articles may spotlight important policy findings in front of the public and politicians, case briefs can serve as references to future case rulings, and technical documents are able to help organizations achieve their missions.
Some years later, I applied for grad school and got into the Harris School of Public Policy at U Chicago, where I conducted public consulting in the Applied Policy Communication Lab course. It was really interesting when I sit with our clients, talked about their struggles, and researched potential solutions. I completed a strategic communication report for them at the end and offered concrete suggestions. Additionally, I worked as a financial and strategic analyst for the Skokie School District 73.5 this summer through Education Pioneer. In this new role, I helped the district draft technical documents that would effectively help their teachers and students. These experiences sharpened my skills and boosted my interest.
Now I am ready to launch my next stage of writing. I have a myriad of articles and initiatives in mind. For example, fascinated by people’s stories, I want to open a narrative series to talk abuot Chicago/Minneapolis residents’ experiences with the criminal justice system. I am planning to launch the initiative later this year.
With writing, I am building my impact.