Research Writer Interview With Rory

I developed an early appreciation for literature and composition in school. I was always intrigued by the written word, the precise cadence of flow of language. In high school I wrote short stories and book reports with an authority and clarity that impressed my teachers. I was a straight-A student in English, and later an English major in college. Part of my tuition was earned by writing papers for my fellow students, many of whom expressed difficulty with either format or content. In addition to earning money I greatly enjoyed the challenge of writing term papers and research papers for other students in a variety of different subjects. The experience merely served to sharpen and refine my writing skills as well as my general knowledge. More than an acquired skill, I consider writing to be a personal passion, a means of self-expression, and a platform for excellence.

The range and scale of my interests all involve the process of writing. I am a novelist and writer of short fiction. I have also done extensive copywriting for real estate firms that have employed me in leasing and marketing divisions. I enjoy any medium that employs written skills under a variety of formats. Advertising is deceptively challenging for a writer because one is consciously using language to seduce interest in a certain product or service. The precise formulations of the copy are critical to securing someone’s interest or active participation. Marketing apartments through ad-copy entails a fairly pedestrian use of language skills, the challenge is making the copy unique and compelling. To this extent one might examine the standard ad-copy line for line until it is familiar, and then devise ways that the words can jump out at the reader enough to generate interest.

My academic background consists of four years as an English major at Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona. I enjoyed the experience from not only an academic perspective, but also from the perspective of a native New Yorker suddenly transplanted to the Southwest. The college itself was a wonderful atmosphere, rich in diversity and academic pursuits. I studied both classic literature and contemporary writers such as Pynchon and Vonnegut. I refined my writing skills by contributing select articles to the college newspaper, and authoring papers for my fellow students. Part of the fascination with writing is that the process is constantly refined and altered as one matures and develops, experiencing new sensations and feelings. There is always the challenge to find more accurate ways of expressing a certain perspective or feeling, a deliberate quest for that abstract sentence that perfectly captures an otherwise ineffable aspect of life. Where the writer can secure that elusive frisson in words he or she has accomplished their professional and aesthetic mission.

Writing superior research papers requires considerably more than acquired analytical skills and a requisite vocabulary. The process demands both an attention to detail, and a shrewd sense of what to include and exclude in the research material, how to paraphrase it, or present it in a way that does not merely echo the sources. Depending upon the subject, the author is obligated to express an easy familiarity and efficiency of description that doesn’t come across to the reader as forced or awkward. If the subject is esoteric or abstract the author is encouraged to make the subject accessible to those unfamiliar with it, breaking down the more complex or demanding components into summative arrangements. In this particular respect the writer is the medium between subject and reader.