Defining Margin

as in, she lost by a slim margin?

First, a story:

I have been writing for about fourteen years now, maybe a little longer. In the past, I’ve explained to friends that I think of my compulsion to write as a type of addiction, because maybe it is unhealthy given all of the rejection I’ve received over the years, most recently University of Iowa Press’ Iowa Short Fiction Award and University of Wisconsin’s Poetry Series Prize, that one for the second year in a row—finalist.

Friends say this is a huge accomplishment, that I lost by such a close margin. But to me, opening that email (“one of 20 finalists” / “hope you’ll take this news as a bit of encouragement” / “we have to turn down many impressive collections”) feels like failure and I continue to wonder if my writing is worth reading.

In 2018, I described writing like this — as an addiction — to a fellow artist I met while I was in Rome, bouncing between a story collection and law review article as a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She said I was being too hard on myself. Art is not an addiction, she told me. It is a gift.

I try to remember her advice on the low days, when I question the value of what I bring to our world. After all, I have three young children to raise, and over a hundred bright students this coming fall semester alone to be an example for—what sort of example would I be if I stopped doing the work that is a part of who I am? Maybe I need to re-frame my inner thoughts and buck up. Tell myself—you are not losing by a margin, you are at the margins of success. Keep going. Do not give up. Better days are ahead.

With that, here is the meaning of margin.

Margin:

a. at the outside edge or border of something

b. on a sheet of paper, the part where conventional minds feel no formal writing should go; the best place for handwritten edits and comments

c. the selling price of a good minus the real cost of that good sold; for gross profit margin, this figure is then divided by the selling price of the good, and afterwards, multiplied by 100 in order to be viewed as the business’s percentage profitability a/k/a gross profit margin

Note: There are several further detailed finance terms including “margin” within such as net profit margin, operating margin, and margin trading. These terms have corresponding formulas which you would learn in an economics or finance course. However, for a basic example of gross profit margin using a breakfast product at the height of current public discourse right now because of their shortage, see below: