Schulz's Theme Of Utility Of Error

A hunter unwraps his new scope and firmly attaches it to his rifle. He takes aim through the scope at a bullseye down the range, fires three shots, and checks the accuracy. All three shots are a little high and to the left, he adjusts the scope a click right and a click down. Three more shots are fired and again the scope is adjusted accordingly. This process is repeated as many times as necessary for the margin of error to be eliminated. Schulz explains this process of shoot, analyze, revise instead in terms of the Utility of Error. The idea that by being wrong and recognizing it, one can make changes to become better. Throughout all walks of life Schulz’s theme of Utility of Error is demonstrated. A few important examples are during schooling
whether it be on a math test or a history exam or even an essay, one isn’t perfect from the first moment of class. It takes the errors and misspellings to become better. A writer composes a paragraph or two and then after potential insight from new sources or simply revisiting ideas again with their own thoughts begins to analyze those previous paragraphs once more for revision. To break the process down, there is an initial perspective, followed by additional analysis and/or insight from an expert, which leads to a modified or changed perspective. In my own writings I have progressed greatly from my youth. This more professional work is not because I wrote with perfect grammar, style, and clarity in my first paper and have replicated it since. The improvement in my work comes instead from acknowledging an error in my previous papers, or rather many errors, and learning how to better format and draft an essay in all aspects upon which errors have been highlighted. As for the experts analyzed in class, I don’t have access to their archives and could not say for certain which formatting errors they overcame individually. Despite this, it is very clear that my papers have drastically improved with each that I write in English 100 alone. My initial essay that was meant to show my current level of writing had countless marks for correction from forgetting to number the pages to improper noun capitalization “I read The Kite Runner… last Winter”(Writing Sample 1) to the multiple run on sentences I had in my essay. By the first actual essay the pages were properly numbered, though I still forgot to include my last name with the numbering, by the second real essay this was accounted for. Despite having typed the page numbers properly, again I noticed an error, the margins cut off the top of “Meier 1” and I had to reprint before handing in the paper. Each time I write, I make new errors; however, I learn from my old errors and take caution to avoid repeating them once more. With experts, there is an aura that they can do no “wrong” and that they always know what they’re talking about.
More likely is that these experts have made so many mistakes on their journey to become an expert that they make mistakes much less commonly. As stated above, it would be hard to prove that Jane Tompkins improved her grammar and style over time. Much easier to prove would be that Jane Tompkins initially thought of violence as purely unethical and later found that there may be reason for brutality as it may be described. In the beginning Tompkins analyzes “big-game hunters”(Jane Tompkins 419) which leads her down the path of noticing the club whose entrants must have the “achievement of killing ‘in fair chase’ trophy specimens from several species”(Tompkins 419) which by simply her putting the quotes around “in fair chase” shows her opinion and dislike for the sport. On the last page of her composition, Tompkins says “There was never a time where it was possible to say, there, there you were wrong, Buffalo Bill, you should not have killed that Indian… you should have quit the army”(Tompkins 430) expressing that although killing and violence are still not something she is in any way in favor of, she accepts that it may have necessary implications. Although at no time in the opinionated paper could Tompkins have been objectively wrong, but at some point she decided to change her views. She changed her views, found utility from her error, and developed her thoughts and opinions over time as opposed to simply assuming her original thoughts were correct and standing stuck in the mud that is not recognizing a
mistake. Looking at any individual, be it an expert or a grade school child, if one could lay out all of their essays in a timeline manner, then a certain progression would be clear. A progression not necessarily of ideas, but even just of construct. Each progressing report would have less spelling errors, less run on sentences, better word selection and all of the other important aspects of creating a work that can com