An Idea in 900 Words

Khairil Azhar Pelukis S. Soedjoyono suatu hari ditanya tentang teori yang dipakainya dalam melukis. Ia menjawab dengan suaranya yang agak parau, Apa saudara tahu ada teorinya orang naik sepeda? . Menulis prosa yang baik ternyata tidak mudah. Para penulis, yang paling berpengalaman pun, selalu perlu diingatkan lagi kekurangan-kekurangannya. . Menulis dengan baik memerlukan perbaikan terus-menerus, agar tulisan tidak ruwet dan melelahkan pembacanya. . (Seandainya Saya Wartawan Tempo, 1997) Pak Khairil, please write in not more than 900 words, told a The Jakarta Post editorial page editor several years ago. I since then disciplined myself to write in that range, very often precisely in 900 words. Long-winded article is not a better choice. Please make your sentences simple and define any technical terms. The assumption is that your readers are students learning to understand an English text, another email from the editor told me. I follow his suggestions and try to write both simply and understandably. If not written shortly, every sentence is made more comprehensible with the help of punctuations. Most paragraphs in an article consist only of two or three sentences. Take a look at the following passage.

Concrete to abstract approach is another thing that counts much. Being a school-teacher for more than fifteen years has made me accustomed to simplifying difficult ideas. Starting with a complicated or sophisticated theory to explain a phenomenon is therefore a big mistake. I prefer to open my column with a story. In addition to the above sample, the following excerpt may help.

Yet, we must be careful with needlessly long story. It should keep focusing on attracting the readers to smoothly come into the main idea. In the article Religious Affairs Ministry and the Start of Ramadhan, the story is actually very short. The mind of the readers is then shaken with questions, statements and historical reference. This way, our opinion will be read without having to make the readers excessively use their energy to understand sophisticated theories. At the same time, as in Ramadhan, Children and Persistent Violence telling a story to convey an opinion also means the use of a theoretical perspective without having to complicatedly define or use technical terms. The continuation of the excerpt makes it clearer.

If the writer did not have a social theoretical perspective, he would not look at the phenomenon as something worth enough to write. So, here we also come to another important thing in writing: a distinctive perspective. There must be something different, something that makes people agree or disagree. Look at the continuation of the article.

What comes to our minds after reading the passage? Something most of us abandons but does exist. Even we ourselves might, to certain extent, involve in keeping it up. C. Wright Mills wrote,
What they (men) need, what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. In this quality, I contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect what may be called the sociological imagination (C. Wright Mills, 1959)

Writing an opinion is therefore an effort to understand what is going on, to put into words what can be understood with the help of a perspectiveregardless theoretical or common sense.

After exploring the practice of taking advantages of orphans and poor children in the third part of the article, instead of coming with big but inapplicable ideas to cope with the problem, the writer just simply asks his readers,

Here, the writer realizes that the socio-political problem is not something easy to be solved. Realizing that there is a big problem around is the main thing he wants to tell his readers. At least, he hopes, changes start individually. An opinion should not be written in a cook-book style or in a form of guidelines. ----Talking about why writing in English, I have my own answer. English seems to be a more mature language compared to Bahasa Indonesia. I can more easily construct an effective sentence. Similarly, I can choose a word or phrase with better precision to convey an idea. The availability of spelling and grammar checker and thesaurus in Microsoft Words also help very much. They help us enrich our vocabulary, not to repeatedly use the same word or phrase to represent an idea.

Whether English is our first or second language or a foreign one to us, dictionary plays pivotal role. If our first language is Indonesian, the most acceptable dictionaries are kamus Indonesia-Inggris by John M. Echols and Hassan Shadily or the one written by Peter Salim. Penerbit Mizan has also published a more complete Indonesian-English Dictionary edited by Putut Widjanarko. 4

Those dictionaries contain almost all expressions we need to write an opinion for mass media. Of course, technical terms for medical purposes, for instance, require more specified resources. Yet, in the hands of a good writer, readers should not be disturbed with unnecessary technical terms. ----In addition to reading good opinion articles available, such as in The Jakarta Post, The New York Times or Guardian, using the like The McGraw-Hill Reader book has an extra advantage. A reader book designed for literature learning usually provides pre and post reading questions. It also facilitates the readers with alternatives to broaden their vocabulary. How should we better practice? I myself prefer to do what was suggested in the movie Finding Forester. An article or a story should be written without unnecessary frequent or long pauses of looking up references or of thinking of what to be written. To help with the flowing of the idea, beside an outline, the sequence and essential parts of a story or column must have been arranged in mind. Sitting typing it has to be a smooth and joyful process. As to the development of technology, computer helps very much in editing my article in the writing process. The pieces of the puzzle can be easily rearranged to make them fit best. If I have to rearrange it a thousand times, it does not cost much. It is just about patience.

Ciangsana, 15 December 2012