WRITING BETTER ENGLISH, LESSON 2

WRITING BETTER ENGLISH, LESSON 2

KEY ELEMENTS OF PERSUASIVE WRITING

ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS

Ethos - Authority, character, reliability, knowledge

Logos - Logic, evidence

Pathos - Emotional appeal

Recommended reading

STRUNK AND WHITE, ELEMENTS OF STYLE

EMERSON, "Self-Reliance" Essay

FROST, POETRY, "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same"

WEEKLY SHORT ASSIGNMENT: Why study fine writers from other times and foreign lands?

LAST WEEK’S ASSIGNMENT: WHY STUDY WRITING BETTER ENGLISH?

FROM ELEMENTS OF STYLE:

II. ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION

 

8. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic.

This can be tricky, as “topic” is a slippery term. Lately, short paragraphs have become fashionable and are effective.

 

9. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning.

“In conformity” does not mean repeating, however. Be more creative as you restate.

 

10. Use the active voice.

Active: She wrote the poem.  Passive: The poem was written by her.

 

11. Put statements in positive form.

Do not put statements in this negative form, generally.

 

12. Use definite, specific, concrete language.

As done in “connecting Asian American women to the world.”

 

13. Omit needless words.

Be pithy, terse, and succinct, avoiding repetition and redundancy, unlike this sentence.

 

14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.

Loose sentences are distinguished from periodic ones, where the main idea comes at the end.

 

15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form.

Use parallelism in sentence structure: she wrote the book and he drew the pictures.

 

16. Keep related words together.

Make it clear what your modifiers modify.

 

17. In summaries, keep to one tense.

Generally, use the simple present or simple past tense: it does, it did….

 

18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

Easier said than done.

 

ESSAY, "SELF-RELIANCE," RALPH WALDO EMERSON

SECOND PARAGRAPH OF THE ESSAY (BROKEN INTO SENTENCES HERE):

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. 

The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none.

It is not without preestablished harmony, this sculpture in the memory.

The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.

Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession.

We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

It is a deliverance which does not deliver.

In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Poet ROBERT FROST, "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same”

He would declare and could himself believe

That the birds there in all the garden round

From having heard the daylong voice of Eve

Had added to their own an oversound,

Her tone of meaning but without the words.

Admittedly an eloquence so soft

Could only have had an influence on birds

When call or laughter carried it aloft.

Be that as may be, she was in their song.

Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed

Had now persisted in the woods so long

That probably it never would be lost.

Never again would birds' song be the same.

And to do that to birds was why she came.

 

ASSIGNMENT: 100-200 WORDS ON WHY STUDY FOREIGN WRITERS AND NON-CONTEMPORARIES, TOO?

I help people write and publish their books, through my WriteYourBookWithMe.com, and I tutor on Wyzant.com.

You can email me at douglas@tingandi.com