Do you find questions annoying when used in essays?

B.T. Dubbs

Do you ever start to peer edit a friend’s essay and realize their hook is nothing more than a stupid question? Do you read on to find that their entire introduction paragraph is simply a series of annoying inquiries? Does this approach to essay writing bother you as much as it bothers me?

When did we become so desperate that we thought the only way to bring up analytical concepts was through mindlessly questioning our readers? Does this technique seem oddly like we are interrogating the reader? Why do some novice writers think they can carelessly pose theoretical questions and not expect the reader to want to answer at least some of them?

Who came up with this terrible style of writing? How far back can we trace the origins of the question back to? Did the earliest scribes realize what a terrible thing the question would become?

To begin we must ask: was the question used so superfluously in earlier times? Did it lose all meaning so early in its existence? Or did it at one time actually try to reach a response from the reader? How did the able writer come to such a means to misuse the question as simply another way to state a thought? Why not reserve the question for times of calling upon the reader to actually think?

When can the reader answer for once? Have we not convinced the reader to never answer because he was simply never given the chance? Before he could even answer the first question, did we not ask a second question in quick succession to distract from the first question? Does the question answer itself, or does the answer question the question before the question has time to answer? Do you follow?

What has society gained from the ever-so generic question? Will we ever return to a time when one like Descartes can pose a question with real meaning? (What does it mean to be?) Or will we be forever trapped in a world where Lil’ John can drain all previous meaning of the question every time he asks “what?”

Why question? Why not simply answer the question that needs not be posed? What has the question done to the writer to deserve such abuse? Doesn’t such an approach abolish all meaning from the question?

Don’t answer that.