Portrait of a columnist

In the spirit of Kramer's coffee table book about coffee tables, I thought I would write an editorial about editorials, or rather, what not to write editorials about.

There are a few stock editorials which The Daily Princetonian runs every year and I implore all of you, regular columnists, guest columnists, aspiring columnists or infrequent letter writers, NOT to write about the following subjects:

1) The Thesis. Listen, I have read too many op-ed pieces about theses since I was a freshman. Now, as a senior, I am writing one. I like my topic, but the task of writing a 100-page tome is definitely arduous. In that vein, please don't share your misfortune with the rest of us. Everyone who is writing or has written one feels your pain, so there is no need to talk about late nights of writing, waging hard-fought recall wars over badly-needed books or the amount of coffee you have consumed in a 48-hour writing binge. All of these editorials have a common theme — so suck it up and share your pain with fellow seniors, not the rest of the campus community. This category also includes senior reminisces of academic careers at Princeton.

2) Job prospects. Now, I know many seniors already have jobs, but for those who don't or are still pondering their options, please don't write about your experience. Every senior has a few options before graduation: take a "sell-out" job, take a low-paying non-profit job, go to grad school, take a year and have fun or some variation of these options. I understand that choosing the next step after walking through FitzRandolph gate is tough, but, like the thesis, it is something everybody goes through. Some people just choose to put their feelings about it on paper, but everyone is feeling the same whether or not they have literary skill. So, please don't write about it.

3) Classes and Professors. We all have classes we love, classes we hate and professors we idolize or despise. Many of us (at least I did) chose Princeton because of the undergraduate focus and the ability to interact regularly with professors and to have small, intimate classes. We all understand this and realize that we should appreciate our educations and the academic experiences we have. There is no need to write an editorial about them. I am actually guilty of this sin but promise not to do it again.

4) Banal Princeton things. This is kind of a hodge-podge category, which includes such normal things as getting sick, having lots of work to do, going to McCosh to see if you have mono or are pregnant, doing laundry, trying to contort your backside to get your prox to unlock a door (yes, people have written about this) or any other garden-variety occurrences at Princeton which everyone knows about. Of course, if they are funny or are particularly illuminating, that is acceptable.

That concludes my short list. What the reader will find is that the four categories revolve around activities which all Princeton undergraduates have in common at some point or another. What differentiates these categories from columns that should be written and published is novelty. Columns should present a novel viewpoint about some occurrence, not merely rehash common feelings and observations. They should be written so that the campus community will be able to learn something new and interesting from a writer's vantage point. I hope that this semester's columns will aim toward that goal. Do not write about things everyone knows about — write a piece from which others will learn.

(Seth Wikas is a Near Eastern Stuies major from Beachwood, OH. He can be reached at sawikas@princeton.edu)