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"The Logic and Rhetoric of Exposition"
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Posted by Cassius
Sep 6, 2012 at 07:41 PM
This was the title of a required text in my advanced college freshman class in 1959. It was unintelligible.
So too have some posts in recent weeks seemed to me.
Shortly after I married, my wife (of 44 years this week) explained to me what she had learned as a journalist and editor:
Short sentences.
Short paragraphs.
Provide the main point of your posting in in the first two sentences.
P.S. We’ve been married 44 years, but sometimes it feels like 45.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 6, 2012 at 07:43 PM
Congratulations, Cassius. My wife and I got married four years ago today, so you have us beat by a little. (I’m a late marriage bloomer.)
SZ
Posted by reverendmartian
Sep 6, 2012 at 11:10 PM
I disagree, and, I think, so would Jacques Barzun, author of “Simple & Direct,” the pre-eminent tome on rhetoric for writers. Dean Barzun favored compound and complex sentences because complex relationships cannot accurately shown by using simple sentences. They need to be linked or subordinated in one sentence if possible. Ditto about your prescription about short paragraphs. Paragraphs have to do with developing ideas; and I would argue that you are not seeing all the relationships among ideas in a paragraph comprised of a few short sentences. If an idea truly has only one facet, then it is simple and self-evident and probably unworthy of any exposition, short or long. Check out the length of Dan Dennett’s paragraphs in any of his books—-typically 20 or more long sentences, all of which hang together nicely. On balance, I would rather be convicted of being long-winded than simple-minded. Besides, your criticism is paradoxical on an outliner software forum in which some topics are regarded as being so complex we need a computer to help us break them down into their constitutent parts. If a topic could be sufficiently covered in a few short sentences and a few short paragraphs, we presumably could keep all of that data in our heads rather than commiting it to paper, digital or otherwise.
My complaints about some posts from some newcomers are that the posts are irrelevant to the forum’s raison d’etre and ostentatious
displays of verbosity. More than that is better left unsaid.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 7, 2012 at 01:07 AM
I suspect your post is a satirical response to the question at hand. At least, I hope it is.
Apart from satire, one shows wisdom by avoiding dogmatism about paragraph and sentence structure. Much of it depends on context.
The paragraph length I’d choose to develop an idea in an academic journal and in a popular magazine would differ.
Having said that, I find even in the academic literature, and such publications as The London Review of Books (which I love), that paragraphs often are way too long; judicious editing would benefit both the paragraphs and those who read them.
Among novelists some writers craft long and complex paragraphs, while others limit their length. Similarly with sentences.
Since context is about purpose and place, readers and their needs, and generally agreed upon boundaries beyond which off-topic material resides, I’d submit this is unlikely to be the most appropriate place for discussions about Proust (or Daniel Silva’s most recent espionage novel, The Fallen Angel, which is excellent indeed), or even posts such as this one on writing style.
Daly
reverendmartian wrote:
>I disagree, and, I think, so would Jacques Barzun, author of “Simple & Direct,” the
>pre-eminent tome on rhetoric for writers. Dean Barzun favored compound and complex
>sentences because complex relationships cannot accurately shown by using simple
>sentences. They need to be linked or subordinated in one sentence if possible. Ditto
>about your prescription about short paragraphs. Paragraphs have to do with
>developing ideas; and I would argue that you are not seeing all the relationships
>among ideas in a paragraph comprised of a few short sentences. If an idea truly has only
>one facet, then it is simple and self-evident and probably unworthy of any
>exposition, short or long. Check out the length of Dan Dennett’s paragraphs in any of
>his books—-typically 20 or more long sentences, all of which hang together nicely.
>On balance, I would rather be convicted of being long-winded than simple-minded.
>Besides, your criticism is paradoxical on an outliner software forum in which some
>topics are regarded as being so complex we need a computer to help us break them down
>into their constitutent parts. If a topic could be sufficiently covered in a few short
>sentences and a few short paragraphs, we presumably could keep all of that data in our
>heads rather than commiting it to paper, digital or otherwise.
>
>My complaints about
>some posts from some newcomers are that the posts are irrelevant to the forum’s raison
>d’etre and ostentatious
>displays of verbosity. More than that is better left
>unsaid.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 7, 2012 at 01:12 AM
Cassius, at university I wrangled with English literature profs about paragraph structuring. Mine were, having come from a newspaper background, too short. I continually agreed to attempt to make longer paragraphs, and my profs agreed that, all other things (especially clarity) being equal, my fetish for short paragraphs would not result in having marks docked. My profs did comment from time to time on the clarity of my writing, and I never failed to infuriate them by suggesting it could have something to do with my paragraphs. :)
I think your wife’s advice on good writing is spot on.
And congratulations indeed to both of you on your marriage anniversary.
Daly
Cassius wrote:
>This was the title of a required text in my advanced college freshman class in 1959. It
>was unintelligible.
>
>So too have some posts in recent weeks seemed to me.
>
>Shortly
>after I married, my wife (of 44 years this week) explained to me what she had learned as a
>journalist and editor:
>
>Short sentences.
>Short paragraphs.
>Provide the main
>point of your posting in in the first two sentences.
>
>P.S. We’ve been married 44
>years, but sometimes it feels like 45.