Things I Said To My AI

You know, when I was fresh out of university I realized the greatest gap in my English mastery is that I struggle with articulating abstract ideas. The first book that actually got me thinking like, “damn, there’s some phrases here I could use” is Joan Didion’s Why I Write. Her writing style, perhaps typical of American writers of her era, is very incisive, it’s as if at her times the measure of literary achievement is not in the flowery, but by who can reproduce human experience in words in the most specific and concise manner. Specific, as in the writing is sharp and calls out a single shade of nuance amongst the overlapping mix of human experiences. This specific shade of grief, not this, nor that. Concise, as in each word is there for a purpose. The writing is tight, the choice of word has been deliberated over and over extensively so that there’s only content and no room for fat. Now fast forward to 3 or 4 years later, I believe I still have a long way to go in this area

I have an epistemology question that have plagued me for years. Whenever I hear teachers/lecturers teach how to structure one’s argument, it is always taught that citing secondary sources help strengthen it. However, that didn’t sound particularly convincing to me because secondary evidence could be wrong, and there doesn’t seem a realistic way for me as the author to verify the accuracy of every single source I cite. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the use of secondary source be irresponsible? As a reader, knowing that the author cannot possibly guarantee the truthfulness of all the sources they cite, how can I let myself become more likely to be persuaded by arguments supported by secondary evidence?