Simple & direct / Jacques Barzun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barzun, Jacques, 1907-2012.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Rhetoric.

English language.

Report writing.

Physical Description:

xiv, 268 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Edition:

Fourth edition, first Quill edition.

Other Title:

Simple and direct

Place of Publication:

New York : Quill, 2001.

Summary:

A fter a lifetime of writing and editing prose, Jacques Barzun has set down his view of the best ways to improve one's style. His discussions of diction, syntax, tone, meaning, composition, and revision guide the reader through the technique of making the written word clear and agreeable to read. Exercises, model passages both literary and casual, and hundreds of amusing examples of usage gone wrong show how to choose the right path to self-expression in forceful and distinctive words.

Contents:

I. Diction, or Which Words to Use 13

Time Out for Good Reading I: Working and Thinking on the Waterfront 53

II. Linking, or What to Put Next 57

Time Out for Good Reading II: Aristotle on Detective Fiction 104

III. Tone and Tune, or What Impression Will It Make? 109

Time Out for Good Reading III: Language Defined 142

IV. Meaning, or What Do I Want to Say? 145

Time Out for Good Reading IV: Hints for Sawing 181

V. Composition, or How Does It Hang Together? 187

Time Out for Good Reading V: The Law as Guarantee of Free Speech 221

VI. Revision, or What Have I Actually Said? 227

Time Out for Good Reading VI 252

Hints Toward Improving the Quoted Sentences 255.

Notes:

"A rhetoric for writers"--Cover.

Includes index.

ISBN:

0060937238

OCLC:

48694609