Navy Taught Isaac Asimov How (Not) to Write

Review by Bill Doughty

What was Isaac Asimov doing around this time, 75 years ago? Writing – in accordance with the Navy style guide – a "report on seam-sealing compounds."

"Every sentence had to be in the passive," Asimov notes (in passive voice) in "It's Been a Good Life" (Prometheus, 2002, edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov.

Working for the DOD: L. Sprague DeCamp, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein

Asimov and Robert Heinlein, among the founders of American science fiction, worked as Navy civilians at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during the Second World War. They were part of homefront support efforts, and in 1944 Asimov had to write that report on seam-sealing compounds.

Describing correspondence and reports written in Navy-style at the time: "There had to be a heading of a certain kind, and then an 'in re' with a coded letter-number entry. Each paragraph had to be numbered," Asimov writes.

"Specifications had to be written Navy style also. Every paragraph had to be numbered; so did every subparagraph and ever subsubparagraph. The main paragraphs were listed as I, II, III, and so on. If anything under a particular paragraph had to be enumerated it was A, B, C ... If A included enumerated items it was 1, 2, 3 ... Under any of these was a, b, c ..., and under these (1), (2), (3)..., and so on. Furthermore, if any on sentence you have to refer to another sentence, you located the referred sentence in its position in the specification, as, for instance, II, C, 3, a, (1). Generally, there weren't too many indentations, or to many references back and forth, and the specifications, while rather tortuous, could be understood – given several hours of close study."

Multi-tasker Asimov at work.

Long and short, Asimov wrote his seam-sealing compounds report "with absolute clarity" and in full compliance with the Navy style guidelines. "I nevertheless managed to break everything down into enumerations, getting all the way down to [(10)] and even [(a)]. I further managed in almost every sentence to refer to some other sentence for which I duly listed a complete identification," he writes.

"The result was that no one on earth could have plunged into it and come out unscathed. Brain coagulation would have set in by page 2." 

Asimov admits the joke was on him; his bosses loved his report and used it as an example for others to emulate.

Fortunately, seventy-five years later, smart Navy leaders embrace simple, clear communication and active voice.

Asimov poses with some of the books he's authored or edited over the years.

Of course, Asimov wrote from both sides of his brain. Asimov, after all, was a Renaissance writer, specializing in fiction, nonfiction, anthologies, poetry and more.

This "found" haiku comes from "Asimov's Guide to the Bible," quoting Exodus 22.21:

Thou shalt not neither vex

a stranger, nor oppress him;

for ye were strangers...

Humility: Asimov sent copies of each of his books, including the Bible book, to his father, who lived in Florida. "He would show it to everyone he knew but would not allow them to touch the books. They had to look at it while he would not allow them to touch the books. They had to look at it while he held it. He must have made himself, and me, so unpopular."

Asimov gave us the blueprint for the AI age. Artificial Intelligence = iRobot.

His fiction may come across as old-fashioned, stodgy and dusty, but his ideas and nonfiction continue to be enlightening. 

There's an interesting revelation in this book about Asimov's confrontation with anti-Semitism, including at the at the Navy Yard and a confrontation with Heinlein. But, in "It's Been a Good Life," he puts prejudice in the perspective of history and his own advantages and privilege.

"It struck me, however, that prejudice was universal and that all groups who were not dominant, who were not actually at the top of the status chain, were potential victims. In Europe, in the 1930s, it was the Jews who were spectacularly victimized, but in the United States it was not the Jews who were worst treated. Here, as anyone could see who did not deliberately keep his eyes shut, it was the African Americans. For two centuries they had actually been enslaved. Since that slavery had come to a formal end, the African Americans remained in a position of near-slavery in most segments of American society. They were deprived of ordinary rights, treated with contempt, and kept out of any chance of participation in what is called the American Dream. I, though Jewish, and poor besides, eventually received a first-class American education at a top American university, and I wondered how many African Americans would have the chance. It constantly bothered me to have to denounce anti-Semitism unless I denounced the cruelty of man to man in general."

Here's a great Asimov quote from this collection: "The whole world seems to live under a banner: 'Freedom is wonderful – but only for me.'"

And here's another, more hopeful, quote from the master: 

"Knowledge is not only power; it is happiness, and being taught is the intellectual analog of being loved."

Read on! Write on!