Ladder of Abstraction

Hi. In this video I'm going to talk about
what it means to be specific.

Few students have escaped the exhortation
from their English teachers to be more specific.

George Orwell, celebrated author
of Animal Farm and 1984,

has charged "The whole tendency of
modern prose is away from concreteness."

But, what do specific and concrete mean?

It turns out to be a problem
since the answer is relative.

In an attempt to explain the continuum
between the specific and the abstract,

the linguist S.I. Hayakawa, in his book
Language in Thought and Action,

invented the notion of a
"ladder of abstraction."

To see how the ladder works, let's start
near the bottom with a Rhode Island Red.

If we were to ask what a Rhode Island
Red was, we'd simply say a "chicken,"

which is the category that contains
a number of different kinds of chicken.

If we would ask what category chicken
would belong to, we would answer "food"

or "farm animal" if we wanted.

But, let's make it easy
and just answer "bird."

The category containing birds
would be "animals."

The category containing animals,
let's say... "living things."

Note that as we go up the ladder we become
more abstract, less specific or concrete,

farther from our picture
of a Rhode Island Red.

Now we have just
one more rung to fill.

What is more specific
than a Rhode Island Red?

Simple: "Roger the
Rhode Island Red rooster."

Roger is the single Rhode Island Red
with his own personality and individuality.

Roger is specific.

Everything above Roger on the ladder
of abstraction is increasingly abstract,

farther from Roger.

As Orwell would tell you, while we need
abstractions or generalizations in our thinking

and in our writing, good writing
hinges on the concrete -- on Roger.

So, from now on, when I tell you I
want to see examples or anecdotes

or descriptions that are specific,
I want them to be Roger-level specific,

showing me the thing itself, the instance, the
person in the place where the incident takes place.

The species and color and
arrangement of the flowers

in the glass or clay or wood or
brass or tin vase containing them.

That's your code word.

To be specific is to be Roger-level
on the ladder of abstraction.

Let's look at one example, the beginning of
the essay by Brent Staples, "Just Walk on By."

Notice that there are two
specific people involved.

The action takes place at a
single time and location.

"My first victim was a woman -- white,
well dressed, probably in her early twenties.

I came upon her late one evening
on a deserted street in Hyde Park,

a relatively affluent neighborhood in an
otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago.

As I swung onto the avenue behind her,

there seemed to be a discreet,
uninflammatory distance between us.

Not so. She cast back a worried glance.
To her, the youngish black man --

a broad six feet two inches with
a beard and billowing hair,

both hands shoved into the
pockets of a bulky military jacket --

seemed menacingly close.

After a few more quick glimpses,
she picked up her pace and

was soon running in earnest.

Within seconds she disappeared
into a cross street."

Now you know what it means to
be specific -- Roger-level specific.

It's your code word for writing about
one place or thing or sequence of events.

And it's the key to compelling writing.

That's it for this edition. If you
found this video informative,

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You can find workbooks to practice your
writing skills at Amazon and my blog,

through the links that follow.
Thanks for listening.