“Orwell, Trump, and Twitter: Reexamining the Relationship Between Politics and Language” (2021-2022)

I remembered how nervous I felt about my expository writing course in the beginning, not only as it was my first semester in university, but also because I didn’t know much about expository writing, especially in English. I was confused when my professor emphasized during the first class that “NO ONE WILL KNOW THEIR THESIS UNTIL THE END of the drafting process.” In high school, I always thought about my argument first, and then searched for supporting evidence. It turns out that this process limited my critical thinking and creativity because the order through which one approaches writing heavily influences a writer’s thinking process. From that first class on, I consistently did my research first, reading sources and connecting the ideas to the main topic before diving in to start the essay. While I was composing this essay, every class, every assignment, every comment from my peers and professor, every draft, and every email mattered. I could actually feel the gradual improvement of my essay from draft to draft. After each discussion with my professor and a Writing Center tutor, my thoughts were more fine-tuned and profound. I wrote my new ideas down, thought and made changes to my draft, and then read through and edited again.

The primary resource I read for this essay was George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”. Under the guidance of my professor, I first wrote a concise representation of Orwell’s essay and tried to grasp Orwell’s main argument and intention. After spending two days researching articles related to George Orwell in the NYU Libraries, I realized that finding suitable sources may be one of the most difficult parts of composing an essay. I felt my essay was more complete and developed when I analyzed deeply the connecting sources, which helped make my essay more convincing. My argument grew more persuasive and thoughtful when it came from my own independent critical thinking. In addition, during the process of analyzing and writing, I developed more ideas that I hadn’t thought about before. My mind was not as restricted as in high school but became open to more intriguing and creative ideas. I’ve found that this thinking process is really important, not just for writing, but also for daily life. In writing, we need sources to support and enhance our argument; in real life, we need evidence and precise logic to conceive of the world around us and think critically about the things that happened and are happening to us.

Melissa Bo-Ya Feng (Stern ’24) grew up in Beijing, China. In her first year at NYU, she studied math and computer science at the College of Arts and Science and will continue her college journey majoring in business and math at the Stern School of Business. She hopes to apply her interdisciplinary knowledge to daily life and make a tangible social impact in the future, spreading love and happiness to those around her. Noticing the significant impact of social media and technology on human lives, she wants to use ‘cold’ technology to create warmth and help people in need. Her essay explores how the rise of social media, especially Twitter, complicates George Orwell’s famous arguments about politics and the English language.