... behooves
you, then, to create an appropriate tone and to avoid
pomposity, say, or will put readers off.
Here are a few examples of how skillful writers make tone
work for them.
Tone Toward Subject
Toward ... Chartists had pushed through a fac-
tory law restricting working time for women and juveniles to eleven
hours, and from May 1, 18 48 to ten hours. This was not at all to
the liking of the manufacturers, ... www.tailieuduhoc.org
CHAPTER
11
Point of View, Persona, and
Tone
Point of View
Thus far we have looked at how to begin and end essays and
how to help readers follow the flow of thought. It remains to
consider...
... some manner, to live, and look tolerably well,
notwithstanding their despair and the continued absence of their
lover; and some have even been known to recover so far as to be
inclined to take another ... requires a stronger stop to signal the distinction
between one unit in the series and another. Look at this sen-
tence about the rise of the Ku in the 19 20s:
There were other factors too: the deadly ... using
commas with adverbials must be understood as loose gener-
alizations, which skillful writers frequently ignore or adapt to
their particular need to be emphatic or clear or rhythmic.
Single-Word...
... Girls don't like to be told that you have to stay
home and study when they want to go to a show or go dancing.
[6] So they find some other boy who doesn't have to study all the
time. ... more reluctant to admit it.
John
Charles R. Forbes went to jail. Albert B. Fall went to jail. Alien
Property Custodian Thomas W. Miller went to jail.
Samuel Hopkins Adams
Such plants to operate successfully ... paragraph relate to its ideas. The
analysis might begin like this:
Sentence Idea
1 Topic: a paradox about grammar
2 Specification: first part of the regard
grammar as dull
> [1] A curious paradox...
... accustomed to the law and order of the present
day to understand the dangers which threatened the Jacobean trav-
eller. The seas swarmed with pirates; so that few merchantmen
dared to put to sea ... subject in its totality. Organ-
izing around 1, 2, and 3 emphasizes particular likenesses or
differences. It all depends on what you want to do. In the
following case the writer elected to organize ... relics, and gave his life into
the guidance of his spiritual director. The Protestant tore open the
machinery of the miracles, flung the bones and ragged garments
into the fire, and treated priests...
... clear to the reader. If you are defining a word, un-
derline it (equivalent to italic type). In the following para-
graph, for instance, the writer wishes to make clear how the
word history is ... compact not to meddle with his
children under any circumstances, it would become me to let
particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there
was a bed newly made up, to which the ... ought to decide. That is just the case. The new territories are
the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies
with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up
with...
... the process, from the seed to the crop, stops
at the intermediate mechanical stage of the money. He does not
grow things to feed men; not even to feed one man; not even to
feed himself. The miser ... expository paragraphs are analytical. To
write about any subject you must it into particulars
(whether reasons or comparisons, illustrations or conse-
quences) and then organize these into a coherent ... American sense of being made happy but in the
tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
James Baldwin
There is no sure guideto when you need to define a word.
Certainly a is called...
... that is still one hell
a pile of pulp. Pauline
To revert for a moment to the story told in the first person, it is plain
that in that case the narrator has no such liberty. . . .
Percy
Comma with ... conventionally punctuated like
this:
April 14 , 19 26
April
In European usage the day precedes the month, in which case
a comma is unnecessary:
14 April 19 26
In those place-names that consist of ... read-
ers from the misstep of thinking the writer is referring to "sail
boats":
When you are first learning to sail boats seem to be very cumber-
some things.
Adverbial clauses in an interrupting...
... in Chapters 21 and 23, where we
discuss emphasis and variety.) Every writer should be able to
handle the short sentence to stress particular ideas and, when
the occasion warrants, to compose brief ... exactly what you want to say.
Segregating sentences are especially useful in descriptive
and narrative writing. They analyze a complicated perception
or action into its parts and arrange these ... clause
functions like the one-word proper noun. Being able to use
the full range of functional word groups available in English
is essentialtowriting well. Here is a quick summary.
Phrases
A phrase...
... word
"campaign":
The Department of Justice began a vigorous campaign to break up
the corporate empires, to restore the free and open market, and to
plant the feet of the industry firmly on the road to competition.
Thurman ... purely poetical.
) G. K. Chesterton
But called by whatever name, it is a most fruitful region; kind to
the native, interesting to the visitor.
) Thomas Carlyle
stood like one thunderstruck, or ... in, to murmur at the present pos-
sessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes
of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of
mankind.
According to...
... STYLES
the following passage criticizing England's participation in
the War of the Spanish Succession (17 01- 1 714 ):
After ten years' fighting to little purpose, after the loss of above a
hundred ... length hearkened to the terms of peace, which was concluded
with great advantage to the empire and to Holland, but none at all
to us, and clogged soon after with the famous treaty of partition.
Allowed ... are
turned upon the stoop, the writer wisely begins a new sen-
tence. Of course, this question of when to stop, of knowing
when one statement should end and another begin, applies to
all kinds of...
... upon none of these signals. Yet they too
need to be emphatic. What they must do, in effect, is to trans-
late loudness, intonation, gesture, and so on, into writing.
Equivalents are available. ... statement:
1. It suddenly began to rain.
2. Suddenly, it began to rain.
If we suppose that the writer wished to draw our attention
to "suddenly," sentence (2) is better. By moving it to the
opening ... from
the noun to the participle (or predicative word).
Sometimes an entire adverbial clause can be cut back to the
operative participle.
WORDY Because they were tired, the men returned to camp.
CONCISE...
... spirit.)
The average autochthonous Irishman is close to patriotism because
he is close to the earth; he is close to domesticity because he is
close to the earth; he is close to doctrinal theology ... election, each party promises to make the city bigger
and better. . . .
Each party, before the election, promises to make the city bigger
and better. . . .
Now the clause is organized into potential ... married man.
Polysyndeton and Asyndeton
Despite their formidable names, polysyndeton and asyndeton
are nothing more than different ways of handling a list or
series. Polysyndeton places a conjunction...
... Victorian
monstrosities, "this area [it was one of his favorite words] is very
rich in antiquity." Aldous Huxley
Sometimes, too, it is necessary to alter a quotation slightly
to it into ... interpretation."
Often written quotations are worked into the text in a
smoother manner by an introductory that. The that requires
no stop since it turns the quotation into a noun clause acting
as the direct ... exclamation points,
placement depends on whether the stop applies only to the
quotation, only to the sentence containing the quotation, or
to both. When the quotation is a question (or exclamation)
and...
... about Toronto? What can one? What has any-
body ever said? It is impossible to give it anything but commen-
dation. is not squalid like Birmingham, or cramped Canton,
or scattered like Edmonton, ... de-
liberately to establish a consensual meaning, as when mathe-
maticians agree that the word googol will mean " ;10 raised to
the 10 0th power." In any case, meaning is what the group
consents to. ... has purpose.
The purpose may be to signify is, to refer
to an object or person other than the writer, to an abstract
conception such as "democracy," or to a thought or feeling
in the...
... to overcome masculine resistance to toilet-
ries as "sissy" (or perhaps to appeal to women, who buy most
of these products for their men).3
Emotionally loaded diction is also the stock-in-trade ... observations,
ideas, feelings, and affecting their responses both to the topic
and to you in ways that you wish. To the degree that it fails
to achieve your purpose, your diction fails entirely.4
4. ... error to pick words that mean too much, to name
an entire class when what you wish to signify is something
less:
Thrift is not one of their attributes. (For virtues)
The novel has far too many...