One important point about your adopted voice and its argument: you have at least to pretend to believe it. Like Solomon and all great minds that ever contemplated the human condition, Martin Luther was right when he said that all of humankind are sinners and sin in every thought and deed and must necessarily sin, so far are we removed from God. His response was, he declared, to "sin boldly." Do not hide quivering under the bed. Do not shuffle shamefully onto the stage full of abject apologies. Be assertive, be bold, adopt a self-confident voice. Fake it if you have to. The cynics may be right. Our worldly institutions and values may all be relative and artificial constructs like the money in our wallets, paper with ink on it and not anything of real value at all. But few of those who believe this line can be found burning the ten dollar bills in their wallets. We live in the world "as if." To some that "if" is a constantly looming threat; to others it's a challenge.

.........

So don't quibble and equivocate and hide behind excuses. Don't begin by saying, "In my opinion...," or "It seems to me that..." These give you away. They say, "It's just little old stupid me saying this and it's probably wrong, so don't hit me, please." That kind of cringing only brings out the bully and the sadist in me. I smell fear, and I pounce, pouring red ink like blood all over the page. Instead, sin boldly! Say "Beyond a doubt, George Bush is a communist dupe and an agent of the still-dangerous international communist conspiracy readying its UN black helicopters to herd us all into ditches and kill us like dogs." I know it's you talking; you don't have to tell me. I know it's your opinion; that is obvious. Make the best argument you can backed up by the best evidence and the tightest logic. Good luck.

.........

The key here is self-confidence, a quality that unfortunately cannot be taught. You need to liberate yourself from the fear of being wrong or the fear of flunking. Emerson in his classic essay "Self-Reliance" says that we are afraid for two reasons, because we fear the ridicule of the crowd and because are terrified that we might say something today that contradicts what we said last weekend. But, he warns, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Students who write careful cautious timid papers in an attempt to appease the anger of the arbitrary red pen of the grader will not do as well as they who angrily or boldly or proudly or insanely throw caution to the wind, damn the torpedoes, and charge bravely ahead. We graders like to be entertained and we like ideas, facts, thoughts. We tend to be those peculiar kinds of people who actually read books for fun, and the kinds of books we like to read are bold and imaginative and original and lively. They are books full of real voices really alive on the page, voices that teach us something or reveal a new angle.