14 Ways to Acquire Knowledge - James T. Mangan

1. PRACTICE and perseverence
Consider the knowledge you already have – the things you really know you can do. They are the things you have done over and over; practiced them so often that they became second nature.

Every normal person knows how to walk and talk. But he could never have acquired this knowledge without practice and persistence. 

For the young child can't do the things that are easy for older people without first doing them over and over and over. …

Most of us quit on the first or second attempt. But the man who is really going to be educated, who intends to know, is going to stay with it until it is done. Practice and persevere!

2. ASK
Any normal child, at about the age of three or four, reaches the asking period, the time when that quickly developing brain is most eager for knowledge.

"When?" "Where?" "How?" "What?" and "Why?" begs the child – but all too often the reply is "Keep still!" "Leave me alone!" "Don't be a pest!"

Those first bitter refusals to our honest questions of childhood all too often squelch our "Asking faculty." We grow up to be men and women, still eager for knowledge, but afraid and ashamed to ask how to get it. …

Every person possessing knowledge is more than willing to communicate what he knows to any serious, sincere person who asks.

The question never makes the asker seem foolish or childish – rather, to ask is to command the respect of the other person who in the act of helping you is drawn closer to you, likes you better and will go out of his way on any future occasion to share his knowledge with you.

Ask! When you ask, you have to be humble. You have to admit you don't know! But what's so terrible about that?

Everybody knows that no man knows everything, and to ask is merely to let the other know that you are honest about things pertaining to knowledge.

3. DESIRE
You never learn much until you really want to learn. A million people have said: "Gee, I wish I were musical!" "If I only could do that!" or "How I wish I had a good education!" But they were only talking words – they didn't mean it. …

Desire is the foundation of all learning and you can only climb up the ladder of knowledge by desiring to learn. …

If you don't desire to learn you're either a numskull or a "know-it-all" and the world wants nothing to do with either type of individual. We have plenty already.

4. GET IT FROM YOURSELF
You may be surprised to hear that you already know a great deal! It's all inside you – it's all there – you couldn't live as long as you have and not be full of knowledge. …

Most of your knowledge, however – and this is the great difference between non-education and education – is not in shape to be used, you haven't it on the tip of your tongue.

It's hidden, buried away down inside of you – and because you can't see it, you think it isn't there.

Knowledge is knowledge only when it takes a shape, when it can be put into words, or reduced to a principle – and it's now up to you to go to work on your own gold mine, to refine the crude ore.

5. WALK AROUND IT
Any time you see something new or very special, if the thing is resting on the ground, as your examination and inspection proceeds, you find that you eventually walk around it.

You desire to know the thing better by looking at it from all angles. … To acquire knowledge walk around the thing studied.

The thing is not only what you touch, what you see; it has many other sides, many other conditions, many other relations which you cannot know until you study it from all angles.

The narrow mind stays rooted in one spot; the broad mind is free, inquiring, unprejudiced; it seeks to learn "both sides of the story."

Don't screen off from your own consciousness the bigger side of your work. Don't be afraid you'll harm yourself if you have to change a preconceived opinion. Have a free, broad, open mind!

Be fair to the thing studied as well as to yourself. When it comes up for your examination, walk around it! The short trip will bring long knowledge.

6. EXPERIMENT
The world honours the man who is eager to plant new seeds of study today so he may harvest a fresh crop of knowledge tomorrow.

The world is sick of the man who is always harking back to the past and thinks everything wroth knowing has already been learned. … Respect the past, take what it offers, but don't live in it.

To learn, experiment! Try something new. See what happens. Lindbergh experimented when he flew the Atlantic. Pasteur experimented with bacteria and made cow's milk safe for the human race. Franklin experimented with a kite and introduced electricity.

The greatest experiment is nearly always a solo. The individual, seeking to learn, tries something new but only tries it on himself.

If he fails, he has hurt only himself. If he succeeds he has made a discovery many people can use. Experiment only with your own time, your own money, your own labor.

That's the honest, sincere type of experiment. It's rich. The cheap experiment is to use other people's money, other people's destinies, other people's bodies as if they were guinea pigs.

7. TEACH
If you would have knowledge, knowledge sure and sound, teach. Teach your children, teach your associates, teach your friends. In the very act of teaching, you will learn far more than your best pupil. …

Knowledge is relative; you possess it in degrees. You know more about reading, writing, and arithmetic than your young child. But teach that child at every opportunity; try to pass on to him all you know, and the very attempt will produce a great deal more knowledge inside your own brain.

8. READ
From time immemorial it has been commonly understood that the best way to acquire knowledge was to read. That is not true.

Reading is only one way to knowledge, and in the writer's opinion, not the best way but you can surely learn from reading if you read in the proper manner.

What you read is important, but not all important. How you read is the main consideration. For if you know how to read, there's a world of education even in the newspapers, the magazines, on a single billboard or a stray advertising dodger.

The secret of good reading is this: read critically!

Somebody wrote that stuff you're reading. It was a definite individual, working with a pen, pencil or typewriter – the writing came from his mind and his only.

If you were face to face with him and listening instead of reading, you would be a great deal more critical than the average reader is.

Listening, you would weigh his personality, you would form some judgment about his truthfulness, his ability.

But by reading, you drop all judgment, and swallow his words whole – just as if the act of printing the thing made it true! …

If you must read to acquire knowledge, read critically. Believe nothing till it's understood, till it's clearly proven.

9. WRITE
To know it – write it! If you're writing to explain, you're explaining it to yourself! If you're writing to inspire, you're inspiring yourself! If you're writing to record, you're recording it on your own memory.

How often you have written something down to be sure you would have a record of it, only to find that you never needed the written record because you had learned it by heart! …

The men of the best memories are those who make notes, who write things down. They just don't write to remember, they write to learn and because they DO learn by writing, they seldom need to consult their notes, they have brilliant, amazing memories.

How different from the glib, slipshod individual who is too proud or too lazy to write, who trusts everything to memory, forgets so easily, and possesses so little real knowledge. …

Write! Writing, to knowledge, is a certified check. You know what you know once you have written it down!

10. LISTEN
You have a pair of ears – use them! When the other man talks, give him a chance. Pay attention. If you listen you may hear something useful to you.

If you listen you may receive a warning that is worth following. If you listen, you may earn the respect of those whose respect you prize.

Pay attention to the person speaking. Contemplate the meaning of his words, the nature of his thoughts. Grasp and retain the truth.

Of all the ways to acquire knowledge, this way requires least effort on your part. You hardly have to do any work. You are bound to pick up information. It's easy, it's surefire.

11. OBSERVE
Keep your eyes open. There are things happening, all around you, all the time. The scene of events is interesting, illuminating, full of news and meaning.

It's a great show – an impressive parade of things worth knowing. Admission is free – keep your eyes open. …

There are only two kinds of experience: the experience of ourselves and the experience of others. Our own experience is slow, laboured, costly, and often hard to bear.

The experience of others is a ready-made set of directions on knowledge and life. Their experience is free; we need suffer none of their hardships; we may collect on all their good deeds. All we have to do is observe!

Observe! Especially the good man, the valorous deed. Observe the winner that you yourself may strive to follow that winning example and learn the scores of different means and devices that make success possible.

Observe! Observe the loser that you may escape his mistakes, avoid the pitfalls that dragged him down.

Observe the listless, indifferent, neutral people who do nothing, know nothing, are nothing. Observe them and then differ from them.

12. PUT IN ORDER
Order is Heaven's first law and the only good knowledge is orderly knowledge! You must put your information and your thoughts in order before you can effectively handle your own knowledge.

Otherwise you will jump around in conversation like a grasshopper, your arguments will be confused and distributed, your brain will be in a dizzy whirl all the time.

13. DEFINE
A definition is a statement about a thing which includes everything the thing is and excludes everything it is not.

A definition of a chair must include every chair, whether it be kitchen chair, a high chair, a dentist's chair, or the electric chair, It must exclude everything which isn't a chair, even those things which come close, such as a stool, a bench, a sofa. …

I am sorry to state that until you can so define a chair or a door (or a thousand other everyday familiar objects) you don't really know what these things are.

You may have the ability to recognize them and describe them but you can't tell what their nature is. Your knowledge is not exact.

14. REASON
Animals have knowledge but only men can reason. The better you can reason the farther you separate yourself from animals.

The process by which you reason is known as logic. Logic teaches you how to derive a previously unknown truth from the facts already at hand. Logic teaches you how to be sure whether what you think is true is really true. …

Logic is the supreme avenue to intellectual truth. Don't ever despair of possessing a logical mind. You don't have to study it for years, read books and digest a mountain of data. All you have to remember is one word – compare.

Compare all points in a proposition. Note the similarity – that tells you something new. Note the difference – that tells you something new. Then take the new things you've found and check them against established laws or principles.

This is logic. This is reason. This is knowledge in its highest form.

James T. Mangan

The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses

THE WRITER'S TECHNIQUE IN THIRTEEN THESES

1. Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with himself and, having completed a stint, deny himself nothing that will not prejudice the next.
2. Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion.
3. In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an etude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds.
4. Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.
5. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.
6. Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.
7. Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honour requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work.
8. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.
9. Nulla dies sine linea ['No day without a line'] – but there may well be weeks.
10. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.
11. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.
12. Stages of composition: idea – style – writing. The value of the fair copy is that in producing it you confine attention to calligraphy. The idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style.
13. The work is the death mask of its conception.

How to Write with Style for the US Market - Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut outlines eight rules for great writing:

Find a Subject You Care About
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about.

It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way — although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something.

A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your hose or a love letter to the girl next door will do.

Do Not Ramble, Though I won’t ramble on about that.

Keep It Simple
As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. ‘To be or not to be?’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story ‘Eveline’ is just this one: ‘She was tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.’

Have the Guts to Cut
It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak, but your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.

Sound like Yourself
The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was the novelist Joseph Conrad’s third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt coloured by his first language, which was Polish.

Lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as un-ornamental as a monkey wrench.

I find that I trust my own writing most when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. Others seem to trust it most, too.

What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like a cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.

Say What You Mean to Say
I used to be exasperated by such teachers, but no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories, against which I was to compare my own work, were not magnificent for their dated-ness or foreign-ness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say.

My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine.

The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable — and therefore understood.

Consequently, there strated my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music.

If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledly-piggledy, I would simply not be understood.

So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.

Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.

Pity the Readers
Readers have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years.

So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists.

Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify, whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.

That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment.

So, the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

For Really Detailed Advice
For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, a more technical sense, I commend to your attention The Elements of Style, by Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White.

Arguably, E.B. White is, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country (US) has so far produced.

You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.

Further Reading
For more timeless wisdom on writing;

• H. P. Lovecraft’s advice to aspiring writers, 
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letter to his daughter, 
• Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, 
• Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 guidelines for a great story, 
• David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, 
• Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, 
• Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, 
• John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, 
• Neil Gaiman’s 8 rules, 
• Margaret Atwood’s 10 practical tips, and 
• Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.