Writing Is More Than a ‘Durable Medium,’ Professor. It’s Part of the Human Experience.

Sure, there was a gap where I worked other jobs, including nursing, but I always came back to writing. And for me, writing always came easy. I think that’s in part because I was a voracious reader as a child and the two are closely linked. But writing itself is an act of learning, and it’s an important skill that every person should be able to perform.

But for Joe Cruz, the head of the philosophy department at Williams College, he just doesn’t see the pedagogical value of writing. 

The head of the philosophy department at Williams College downplays the pedagogical value of writing:

“What if we are mistaken in treating writing as the highest cultivation of thought? The evidence that supports this belief is thin at best. Writing can be useful cognitive… pic.twitter.com/zqf2jcUECF

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 29, 2026

Really?

“If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to.”

(Does this man not write books and papers? A dissertation? Notes?) pic.twitter.com/6LkONHumkH

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 29, 2026

Writing is absolutely essential for achieving thought, for having a career, and for communication — both professional and personal.

A 2020 study published in Sage Journals showed that writing about content — including in areas like math and science — “reliably enhanced learning.”

Another study from 2023 published in Educational Psychology showed that writing produces a moderate improvement in learning above simply reading a text. Those researchers found that the learning advantage wasn’t simply explained by students spending more time on the material, but by the act of writing about the subject matter.

A third study broke students up into groups, and one periodically wrote summaries of what they had learned. That group performed significantly better on free recall and a test given two weeks later. Researchers concluded that summary writing resulted in more durable learning.

As I mentioned above, my ability to write is rooted in the vast amounts of reading I did as a child. But writing also helps improve reading comprehension. This is especially helpful for weaker readers and writers, as writing about reading material boosts comprehension across different types of texts and subjects.

There’s also a link between writing things by hand, with research showing more extensive connectivity among brain regions in study participants who wrote by hand versus typing things on a computer. Ask any teacher, and they will tell you that the proliferation of technology over writing has largely negatively affected learning.

All of that is the logical, scientific side of the argument. Everyone writes. We send emails, text messages, Facebook posts, X updates. If you work in any sort of professional capacity, you are going to write — to a client, a co-worker, your boss. My entire livelihood depends on my ability to write. 

But writing is so much more than that. It’s art. It’s what gave us Shakespeare and James Joyce and J.K. Rowling. It’s what gave us playwrights like Neil Simon and George Bernard Shaw and poets like Pablo Neruda and Maya Angelou. 

Writing has even sparked revolutions and massive political and social change. This includes the Declaration of Independence and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The act of writing has literally altered the course of humanity.

It’s important, even if Professor Cruz doesn’t think so.

“Writing has an important function: It summarizes and compresses our thoughts into a shareable, durable medium. Writing remains an essential life skill, and we will continue to do it.”

What an utterly impoverished view of the art of writing. Also, how will we continue to do it… pic.twitter.com/mtgezwSKla

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 29, 2026

It is an impoverished view of writing. Writing is an art. Writing gave us the great works of literature, poetry, and even award-winning journalism. Cruz has watered it down to a utilitarian function instead of an essential part of the human experience.

And here I sit with my English degree and my nursing degree, and I know this. Why doesn’t the head of Williams College’s philosophy department know this? As McGuire asked, doesn’t Cruz write papers? Books? Isn’t the ability to produce academic writing part of the expectation and requirement for being a professor, especially one who has or wants tenure? Doesn’t Cruz enjoy reading? Does he not own books? All of that comes from the art of writing, which Cruz summarily dismisses.

What a bleak view of the world.