... join Stoppard and abandon “confidence.” Instead, looktoward anxiety as a tool for thought. Anxiety—about the way things work, about the way things seem to be, about how to explain a book, a person, ... conventions that writers must respect—what kind of format to use, what level of formality, what tone to adopt, what kinds of syntax, language, and vocabulary to employ.They all have a readily apparent ... subgenres. The academic argumentpays considerable attention to the way things are stated—it aims notnecessarily to “be” art but to state its points in a creative manner, a manner that has the artist’s...