THE ESSAY

A unit of thought

• Kaput
• Typographical indentation
• organization—books, chapters, sections

Victorian Regulations

• “The opening sentence, unless so constructed as to be obviously preparatory, is expected to indicate with prominence the subject of the paragraph.”
• “A paragraph should possess unity; which implies a definite purpose, and forbids digressions and irrelevant matter.”

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• “Since communication…is at best a difficult business, it is part of common sense, not to mention good manners, to mark for the reader the divisions of our thought, and thus make the thought structure visible.” upon the page.”

FLOW

Flow is an elusive quality. It is the feeling that thoughts move logically and smoothly merge into one another.

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• Sentences expressing this “flow” should be free of awkward transitions or distracting repetitions.
• Otherwise, writing gives the sense of being choppy or fragmented.

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• from general to particular (major to minor)
• from question to answer ( doubt to resolution)
• from effect to cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc)

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• A paragraph can still flow by following the “given—new” pattern.

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• These new details then become information your reader has become familiar with, and you can add more in subsequent sentences
• Without necessarily using the words, the underlying order is “considering…,” “seeing that…,” “that being the case…,” “given that…,” “insofar as…,” or, “now…”

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• “Because animals often move their young to evade imminent danger, the response may have evolved through improved offspring survival rates. An effect called the “transport response” is where the young become more docile when carried by their mothers. This applies to altricial mammals, are helpless at birth, such as cats, dogs, mice, squirrels and, notably, humans."

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• "…The insight emerged from research on altricial mammals – those that are helpless at birth – such as cats, dogs, mice, squirrels and, notably, humans. Studies show that when carried by their mothers, the young become more docile, an effect called the “transport response”. Because animals often move their young to evade imminent danger, the response may have evolved through improved offspring survival rates.

22 September

• Spoken and Written Communication
• Active and Passive Constructions
• Style Guides

Talk to someone else about what you want to say, the point you want to make.

It will be clearer, more interesting, and more urgent than what you can think up than what you sit down and ‘ write.’

Find the one thing you want the reader or listener to remember if that's all they take away. Then write it down.

Voicing

An active verb brings action to your text—it's someone doing something.

For example…

The secret of good writing? To strip away everything to its purest elements, to reduce each sentence to its components.

Ask—

• Which word has no function?
• Which long word could be a short word?

Ask—

• Which adverb has the same meaning as the verb?
• Which passive construction leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what?

“…these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.”

From William Zinsser,
On Writing Well (1976)

STOP logorrhea!

A swift, concise style is pleasing because it offers the mind a crowd of ideas simultaneously

and set the mind adrift in such an abundance of thoughts,

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National Association of Black Journalists
nabj.org/page/styleguide


National Association of Hispanic Journalists
nahj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/NAHJ-Cultural-Competence-Handbook.pdf

Conscious Style Guide
consciousstyleguide.com


Language, Please
languageplease.org