he realized that he hadn’t said much yet and that he was moving way tooquickly.
This reminded me of a William Zinsser quote. "Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon." It's true! You can use so many words, but ultimately say so little! I'm guilty of it all the time.
objective,impersonal,formal,
This may be surprising to hear from a journalism major, but I don't believe that objectivity truly doesn't exist in writing. We can try to remain as impartial as we can, but we are human and prone to error. Bias will slip in. However, a work that is truly objective would just be boring! Then there's the question of "seems objective to who?" To journalists like Wesley Lowrey, objectivity skews to what a perceived white and male audience will think. When one considers the realm of academia, do these "many professors" think the same? What does that say about academia itself?
And so my classes practice ways of responding to one another's writing with-out being overly critical, without taking control of the writing out of thewriter's hands, and without damaging egos.
I've had writing classes that played out like this! One student would read out their short story to the entire class and would not be allowed to speak for the duration of a critique. Your work is laid bare for the rest of the class to comment on, or worse dissect, without any personal input or defense. While this had the potential to end in disaster, it didn't! Critique was always kind and specific about what one person liked. It allowed for more volunteering, more sharing of personal work. Encouragement from teachers/professors is one thing, but encouragement from peers in a classroom setting (the opinions a student really cares about) is essential for expressing creativity. Especially in writing and finding style.