Cooperative scholarship of this sort is highly stimulating and sometimes exciting. Writing, speaking, reading and listening are manifestations of thinking. We cannot write, speak, read or listen well without thinking well. As we practice these communications skills we are exercising and enhancing our capacity to reason. Work on our writing is thus the single most effective way to improve our reasoning capacity.
Good writers are more successful than poor ones.
An economically trained person is likely to spend most of his or her working life writing papers, reports, memoranda, proposals, columns, and letters. The writer is wasting the reader's time. We can also learn to become energetic and evaluative listeners. Expectations in seminar encourage speakers to keep to the point and discourage listeners from uncritical acceptance of arguments. Seminars in which both experienced and inexperienced seminar participants enroll are especially valuable, since the experienced participants can act as models for the newcomers.