正如这门课的名称，本课程的目的是要让你精通短文的写作和修辞的传统常例。有学者说，短文是「艺术和哲学之间的交会处」，也有人说短文是「一个自我在世界中找到自身模式的地方，也是世界在自我中找到运转模式的地方」。虽然短文是古代流传下来的散文传统之一部份，但它也是非常现代且普遍的写作形式，在印刷媒体和网络上都看得到。
As the course title suggests, this class is meant to acquaint you with the literary and rhetorical tradition of the essay, a genre which has been described by one scholar as "the meeting ground between art and philosophy," and by another as "the place where the self finds a pattern in the world, and the world finds a pattern in the self". Though the essay is part of a tradition of prose which stretches back to antiquity, it is also a thoroughly modern and popular form of writing, found in print media and on the web.
