Foreword
"In short, the essays represent some of the best work being done in the USP, particularly in its Writing and Critical Thinking programme."
by Johan GeertsemaThis volume of folio presents seven essays of exceptionally high quality written by first-year students, during the academic year 2004-2005, for Writing and Critical Thinking modules offered in the University Scholars Programme (USP) of the National University of Singapore. The essays are diverse in topic, ranging from the language of consumption to the Social Development Unit; from advertisements for vodka to Renaissance paintings; from resistance in George Orwell's 1984 to the question of the metaphorical nature of thought. Additionally, the essays encompass a wide range of formats: there are short, rigorous close readings; comparative papers; and longer writing projects. But what unites all these papers is their meticulous attention to detail, their panache in formulating questions to be explored, their pleasure in offering possible resolutions, their efficiency in working responsibly and critically with complex sources in order to present evidence to substantiate, consider, and reconsider claims. folio thus presents the fruit of careful reading, thinking, planning, drafting, writing, and revising. In short, the essays represent some of the best work being done in the USP, particularly in its Writing and Critical Thinking programme.
With this volume, a number of small changes have been made to the format of the journal. The most significant of these is that the final section, Contributors / Process Notes, has been expanded so as to present not only students' reflections on their writing, but also instructors'. Students reflect on the process of writing, consider how they revised, and in some cases also evaluate the finished product. Instructors comment on the essays that resulted from the process, in each case focusing on one or two aspects that they find exemplary, and often relating the essay to more general writing principles as these are articulated in the module for which the paper was written. The resulting dialogues that implicitly arise not only between individual students and their instructors, but also between different students and instructors, will, we hope, be of interest to readers who seek to reflect on the writing presented here: to reflect on the "intricate process of thinking and writing, grappling with a complexity that is there, but only if one looks closely, differently," as founding editor Katalin Orbán put it in her 2002 foreword to the inaugural issue of the journal.
Go to volume 4, 2005