The keyboard is mightier than the WMD.

Last week, my classmates and I were chatting before our Bible as literature class, in which we were scheduled to have a test. I was conversing with two of my classmates and we all expressed a similar inability to study. One of my classmates then postulated that that, our poor study habits, is why we're English majors.

That got the gears in my brain to turning. She has a point. As English students, we don't pride ourselves on our knowledge of facts. We don't sit in classrooms learning long lists of details to then regurgitate on a 100 question multiple choice test. What do we do? We write. We're writers, not fact fountains.

How does that translate into abysmal study skills? You can write well and not have any clue what you're talking about. Writing isn't about accuracy of information.

This carries interesting implications. If we can write well, then that means we can approach tests, or any other kind of writing assignment, and not know our subject as well as we should. But our impressive words and sophisticated sentence structure will make what little we do know sound really good. We can even make things up if we choose, and it'll sound good too. We'll seem like brilliant individuals, when really we don't know much more than the average person on the street. Only the closest readers will realize that everything we're saying is a bunch of nonsense and fluff.

I've long been aware of this, and it's been something I'm conscious of. Misleading people is not something I want to do. When I write, I try to be honest. And I try to represent myself and what I know accurately. But there are times when I have an essay due, and I'm grasping at a few weak straws, trying to tease out every little thing I can say in order to not fail completely. I get to the end of my knowledge and my essay and I think, surely no one is going to be impressed by this. My professor, who has a PhD and has been doing this for a long time, is going to see straight through my feeble efforts and realize that two and a half pages of this three-page assignment is meaninglessness.

But then I get my essay back and what do I have? Positive comments! Many 'good point' remarks. And a big B written on top? Maybe even an A? How did this happen?

Whenever I'm less than confident in what I have to say and people readily swallow it, I feel bad. I feel like I'm false. I feel like I've betrayed them, like I've fooled them. They should be criticizing me for trying to be so high and mighty, instead of praising my intelligence.

Words are powerful. I realize that. And as a user of them, I take that very seriously. I can easily convince people of just about anything. That's a frightening thought.