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 ³The English language is

rather like a monster
accordion, stretchable at the
whim of the editor,
compressible ad lib.´

Robert William Burchfield CNZM CBE, scholar, writer, and lexicographer.

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 !

 


 2s not a barrier to the very highest level of

achievement:

ºoseph Conrad
Vladimir Nabokov
 



èou must engage and embrace

the creative parts of your brain
in order to write!

"


 
#
 áhe temporal lobes are necessary for
MEAN2NG.
 áhe limbic system is µthe seat of emotion and
drive and«aspects of the feeling of being
inspired¶ (Flaherty 2004).
 áhe cerebral cortex controls the AB2 2áè to
write
 iterally using D2FFERENá PARá
OF áE
BRA2N
|$


 What is à
T
NG?
 ow do we all understand and discus, say -
Ô


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 English Departments!
 2ncredible flexibility
 NO right and wrong: No Ôcademie Française
 But pedantry and inflexibility abound!
 
A and  : ³áwo countries divided by a
common language´
 áhe only solution is !

!
 áechnological constraints! (pic)
Ñ
( 
 


)
))))

http://www.plexoft.com/cgi-bin/thorn.cgi
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*

 "+  


 Essay structure
 Study skills
 esearch methods
 Plagiarism issues
 Time management
 Etc. etc. etc.

ee the resource section and speak to your
study skills advisors!
   


 ow to WR2áE:
- áhe discipline of communicating the
product of the intellect in the (English)
language.


 '

 Read it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be

sure the rhythms of the sentences are O
 èou most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar
book, and a grip on reality.
 (Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the
garden or behind the fridge).
 ask a « friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone
« [not] someone with whom you have a romantic
relationship, unless you want to break up.
 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go
for a long walk.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one


 '
,-.
 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your
observations into words and gradually this will become
instinct. (èou need to write every day to get the rubbish
out of your system (áed ughes)): èou do not learn to
write except by writing.
 Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a
writer's a good idea. .
 Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more.
What is left often springs into life.
 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it
down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
*

%

 áhe nearest 2 have to a rule is a Post-it on the

wall in front of my desk saying "Œ


" (Flaubert), which 2 translate for myself
as "
hut up and get on with it."

!
%

 READ. á2N .
 READ some more. á2N some more.
 Organize your thoughts before you start to
write: how can you begin to write if you don¶t
know what you have to say?
 Can you summarize the premise of your
essay or paper in a
2NG E PARAGRAP?

#

 Exercise (10 minutes)

 Write on the subject given ±
 FREE è
 W2áOá ED2á2NG
 EAVE MARG2N
AND
PACE


#,-.

 áhe purpose is to generate text based on

the reseach and knowledge you now have-
 But NOá to produce µfinished¶ copy-
 A F2R
á DRAFá in the sense that
emingway described it
-The Y
 draft of anything is sh*t¶
|
áhis is CR2á2CA
Convert draft to product (copy)
Read it critically! Are ideas connected? Do
they F OW? Do they express what you
intended?
Be ruthless ± µkill your darlings¶ and Cá,
Cá, Cá.
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&


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#
 Even Jane Austen
 áhe idea of prose flowing effortlessly from a
well of inspiration is a Mèá.
Jane Austen¶s draft of
Persuasion.

áhis is why you must

leave room for editing!

http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/
manuscripts/blpers/1.html

&/

0
 Be consistent
 ave the right level of formality
 Express ideas precisely
 Be concise
 Be objective.
* 
#
 Carefully. áhis is one of the hardest things to do with
your own work.
 What are you B 2ND to? What mistakes do you
repeat?
 Proof for spelling, grammar, repetition redundancy.
 Do it again after any revisions ± new errors
A WAè
creep in.
 Do NOá rely on
pellchecker!
 ook out for malapropisms!
 Check PNCáAá2ON.

 %%
 A decapitated coffee, please!
 "Well, that was a cliff-dweller."
Wes Westrum, about a close baseball game.
 More subtle ones like foregoing or forgoing or
even there/their or sight/site (homonyms).
 ³Rarely is the question asked: 2s our children
learning?´
 ³áhey misunderestimated me.´
|$


 2n pairs: correct the handout text.
*'




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 0
 

 ³« no advice will help more than to read good

authors. Newspapers, unfortunately, are not
generally written in the good English, if some
editorials are excepted«. Darwin is good, though
not so precise in his use of words as
pencer.
áhackeray uses English marvelously. Dickens is
inclined to be careless. Robert ouis
tevenson is
famous for the care he took in his writing. Mark
áwain¶s use of English is excellent.´

Zeisberg, F.C., in Perry (1941), Chemical Engineers¶ Handbook,

2nd Edn., McGraw-Hill.
 1
2'
)
 1
2'
)
 µOur science, which we loved above everything, had
brought us together. 2t appeared to us as a flowering
garden. 2n this garden there were well-worn paths
where one might look around at leisure and enjoy one-
self without effort, especially at the side of a congenial
companion. But we also liked to seek out hidden trails
and discovered many an unexpected view which was
pleasing to the eyes: and when the one pointed it out
to the other, and we admired it together, our joy was
complete.¶
David ilbert, memorial address for ermann Minkowski.
 &'
)
 2s this bad?
 µáhe move from a structuralist account in which capital is
understood to structure social relations in relatively
homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power
relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and
rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the
thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of
Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as
theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the
contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed
conception of hegemony as bound up with the
contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of
power.¶

&'

 From the Philosophy and Literature Bad Writing Contest (1995 to 1998).

tephen á. áyman ³Ricoeur and the Problem of Evil,´ in The Philosophy of Paul
icoeur, edited, it says, by ewis Edwin ahn (Open Court, 1995):
 µWith the last gasp of Romanticism, the quelling of its
florid uprising against the vapid formalism of one strain
of the Enlightenment, the dimming of its yearning for the
imagined grandeur of the archaic, and the dashing of its
too sanguine hopes for a revitalized, fulfilled humanity,
the horror of its more lasting, more Gothic legacy has
settled in, distributed and diffused enough, to be sure,
that lugubriousness is recognizable only as languor, or
as a certain sardonic laconicism disguising itself in a new
sanctification of the destructive instincts, a new genius
for displacing cultural reifications in the interminable shell
game of the analysis of the human psyche, where
nothing remains sacred.¶
http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm

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#
 Good or bad writing can be specific to
 Culture
 Genre
 Discipline
 Publication
 2ndividual
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