"For though the artistic writer will find it easy to discern what has been skillfully written by others, the facile chooser of examples will not necessarily write with skill himself." (246)
I feel like this sentiment is easy to relate to, in terms of my own academic situation. As a Writing Studies student, how can I hope to ever put something of any use to anyone else to a page if all I can ever manage to do is re-write what others have written before me? To some extent, it may be impossible to hope to compose a work strictly from your own thoughts and processes. Any knowledge I may have on the subject I wish to write about had to have come from somewhere, right?
However, if I have nothing new to add to the discourse, no genuine cogitation of my own to contribute, then why write?
Now, I realize that the author here is talking about examples that one may use to strengthen an argument, and I agree with him on the subject. As the writer, I should know what I am trying to say, how I am going to say it better than anyone else not inside my own head. Therefore any example that I can come up with to suit my topic should be a better fit with my piece than anything that could come from the mind of another. The examples I may be able to find from another source may be more powerful, more exquisitely written, or more eloquently stated, but nothing can be better suited to my writing than more of my own writing.
I like how you bring up how the author is talking specifically about examples. I have begun to see in other writing classes the debate about originally and plagiarism, and it has become quite fascinating to me because I never thought about how hard it is to make writing "original." I'm sure I've had the same thoughts/ideas as other writers, who probably shared those same thoughts with someone else. But I like how you point out that, "any example that I can come up with to suit my topic should be a better fit with my piece than anything that could come from the mind of another." I agree with you that anything my brain can come up with is better than what someone else came up with, especially in regards to examples. I think, though, that the ongoing debate about originality and examples will continue to puzzle writers because in some writing you need examples to strengthen an argument making your work "not original". But I think the subject of originality and the uses of examples are two different things that don't necessarily overlap. Your post definitely got me thinking more about the reading and examples and how the author could be right when describing to the use (or non-use) of them.
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