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Solving your writing problems since 1998! |
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~ The Write Way ~ Friday 2 June 2000 Julius Caesar and Rome
Greetings, Last week, we took a quick look at that most basic unit of communication - the sentence. This week, we'll string a few together to make a paragraph. When writing, it's important to be aware of these different units of organisation - they make it much easier for your readers to follow your train of thought. (Did you know that during Caesar's time, the Romans didn't leave any spaces between words - just one enormous word - can you imagine tryingtoreadsomethinglikethathowunbelievablydifficultitmusthavebeen?) A paragraph is a collection of sentences which deals with ONE subject or idea. So, you need to start a NEW paragraph every time you change the
It is much better to have too many short paragraphs than too few long ones. A paragraph contains a Topic Sentence (a bit like the 'heading') and a number of sentences which elaborate on, develop or illustrate the main idea. All of the sentences in a paragraph must be connected to the main idea. I know I've used these examples before, but some things are so-o-o bad, they should be burnt into our little grey cells. The following paragraphs illustrate how NOT to write. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. and ... Once upon a time there was a little boy - just like you! - named Jeff, and he lived in a yellow house with a big yard, along with his mother and father and sister and brother and his bunny rabbit (until it got loose and Mr Koberly's dog ate it) and his goldfish (that his brother flushed down the toilet one day when he got mad at Jeff) and his puppy, Squitters, that ran in front of a car just a few weeks after Jeff's mom had to go to the hospital for an operation (only the operation didn't work, and Jeff's mommy went to Heaven); but before Jeff got leukemia and died, he and his puppy had this exciting adventure ...
Both "sentences" are taken from Frank Muir's book, The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose. The first is the opening sentence in a novel called Paul Clifford by E. G. Bulwer-Lytton (1830) and the second is the winning entry in a parody competition (which challenges people to write the WORST opening sentence possible) called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. You'll note how each breaks every rule of good writing with gay abandon - too many different ideas, too many different settings, too many different characters and situations ... just too much of everything! Don't do it. You can read the latest winner in this contest here. This week's quiz: Write one word from the list that is closest in meaning to the terms below: Quixotic, gourmet, loquacious, hereditary, anachronous, insomnia, gregarious, polytheism, philatelist, diagnosis 1. loves company 2. inability to sleep 3. determining cause 4. extravagantly chivalrous 5. a stamp collector 6. talks a lot 7. belief in many gods 8. received from parents 9. out of time 10.likes good food I came across a wonderful 'disclaimer' last week, that could have been written just for me; it said, "All errors are deliberate - to see if you're paying attention." Thanks to Joe Abbate who was the first to let me know he was paying attention: "An agnostic is "a person who holds the view I'm still trying to find time to look for the definition.
What aspect of human activities do you normally associate with the following? e.g. barometer - weather forecasting Use your imagination with these - there's no definitive answer. 1. bathos - writing ('bathos' is an anti-climax) 2. pirouette - dancing, ballet 3. molecule - science 4. creel - fishing 5. theodolite - surveying 6. yaw - sailing or flying (navigating) 7. tibia - medicine, (orthopaedics) 8. gradient - engineering, driving 9. fulcrum - engineering, building (anything where you use levers) 10.epidermis - medicine (skin treatment) Last year I passed on some of those howlers from students' science exams (you can read these and some History as you've never seen it - on site: http://www.write101.com/science.htm ) Here are some more - thanks to LaVonne for these:Excerpts From Student Science Exam Papers: Word of the week Zythum - (from the Greek 'zythos' meaning 'beer') this is a malt beverage brewed by the ancient Egyptians.OK - I'll have to confess that I don't just choose the first word I stab at - I kept getting mundane words like "floor" - so now I open a page at random and then look for interesting words. This one happens to be the very last word in my dictionary. ~ * ~ If you have any friends who might enjoy The Write Way - please send them a copy and tell them they can subscribe just by clicking on this link: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@onelist.com?subject=TipsTautology of the week: We saw an advert for an exhibition, showcasing the latest mobile moving homes - just the thing for wandering nomads like us. A Latin phrase for those days when the old diet goes straight out the window: Ad mihi sis bubulae frustrum assae, solana tuberosa in modo Gallico fricta, ac quassam lactatum coagulatum crassum. Give me a hamburger, french fries, and a thick shake. (Doesn't it sound really un-appetising in Latin?) Regards, Jennifer To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to WritingTips-unsubscribe@onelist.com or go to the ONElist web site, at www.onelist.com, and select the My Groups link from the menu bar. This menu will also let you change your subscription between digest and normal mode.
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