38 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2024
    1. One might think at first that it was a Universal Lawthat all Writing or Speaking should be so clear as tobe transparent. And yet, as we have seen, no readerof Carlyle can doubt that a great deal of his Forcewould be gone if one made his Writings transparent.If one took some of Carlyle's most typical works andparaphrased them in simple English, the effect wouldnot be a quarter as good as it is.

      How is this accomplished exactly? How could one imitate this effect?

      How do we break down his material and style to re-create it?

  2. Jul 2023
    1. In the West, the primary impact of the idea has been on literature rather than science: "stream of consciousness as a narrative mode" means writing in a way that attempts to portray the moment-to-moment thoughts and experiences of a character. This technique perhaps had its beginnings in the monologues of Shakespeare's plays and reached its fullest development in the novels of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, although it has also been used by many other noted writers.[184]

      Using stream of consciousness for writing, as a narrative form (for me, this portrays more authenticity, maybe even a way to communicate inspirations as it first strook the person, without filter).

  3. Jun 2023
  4. Apr 2023
    1. Ivan Ilyich sensed it, drovethe thought of it away, but it would go on, and it would come and standdirectly in front of him and look at him, and he would be durilbstruck,the light would go ?ut in his eyes, and he would again begin asking himself: - "Can it alone be true?"

      Personification

    2. As his wife became more irritable and demanding

      This story paints her in a very negative light. I still think this is an instance of unreliable narration; perhaps if told from her perspective, she would not think so kindly of her husband trying to simply "protect his peace," instead of valuing their family or helping care for children.

  5. Feb 2023
    1. Rhetoric of encomium

      How do institutions form around notions of merit?

      Me: what about blurbs as evidence of implied social networks? Who blurbs whom? How are these invitations sent/received and by whom?

      diachronic: how blurbs evolve over time

      Signals, can blurbs predict: - the field of the work - gender - other

      Emergence or decrease of signals with respect to time

      Imitation of styles and choices. - how does this happen? contagion - I'm reminded of George Mathew Dutcher admonition:

      Imitation to be avoided. Avoid the mannerisms and personal peculiarities of method or style of well-known writers, such as Carlyle or Macaulay. (see: https://hypothes.is/a/ROR3VCDEEe2sZNOy4rwRgQ )

      Systematic studies of related words within corpora. (this idea should have a clever name) word2vec, word correlations, information theory

      How does praise work?

      metaphors within blurbs (eg: light, scintillating, brilliant, new lens, etc.)

  6. Jan 2023
  7. Dec 2022
  8. Nov 2022
    1. When he was coming up as a writer, the author and journalist Rex Murphy would write out longhand favorite poems and passages. He was asked, what’s that done for you? “There’s an energy attached to poetry and great prose,” Murphy said. “And when you bring it into your mind, into your living sensibility, by some weird osmosis, it lifts your style or the attempts of your mind.” When you read great writing, when you write down a great line or paragraph, Murphy continues, “somehow or another, it contaminates you in a rich way. You get something from it—from this osmotic imitation—that will only take place if you lodge it in your consciousness.”

      This writing advice from Rex Murphy sounds like the beginning portions of Benjamin Franklin's advice on writing and slowly rewriting one's way into better prose styles.

      Link to Franklin's quote

  9. Aug 2022

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    1. Zn&tence on good style. Reasonable care in follow-ing these suggestions with regard to style is essential tothe production of an acceptable essay, and neglect of themwill affect unfavorably the grade to be assigned.

      Sadly, he doesn't define "good style" here and only a paragraph after saying to avoid the style of Carlyle and Macaulay.

      This paragraph is one of the several of the type that would more appropriately appear in a syllabus than in a published journal article on this particular topic. Thus the style is here is part journal article on writing, but also format which could be subsumed into syllabi by others.

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  10. Feb 2022
    1. When you read widely, your brain is exposed to different ways in which a sentence or paragraph is written. There are patterns in the use of nouns, pronouns, verbs and other parts of speech; there are patterns in syntax and in sentence variation; and there are patterns in sound devices, such as alliteration and assonance. You can annotate these with different symbols or colors, and develop understanding as patterns emerge, and style emerges from patterns. To read like a writer, you need to annotate like one, too.

      I haven't seen very much in the area of annotating directly as a means of learning to write. This is related to the idea of note taking for creating content for a zettelkasten, but the focus of such a different collection is for creating a writing style.

      Similar to boxing the boring words (see Draft #4; http://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary), one should edit with an eye toward the overall style of a particular piece.


      Annotating structures and patterns in books is an interesting exercise to evaluate an author's style as a means of potentially subsuming, modifying, or learning other styles.

  11. Jul 2021
    1. If he attempted to defend himself, or to deny the facts, she was, in that event, to refer him to me.

      The writing style of Mr. Bruff just really matches his occupation, direct and clear. And often we can ask just like this sentence, he writes as what a lawyer would say at work, such as "attempt," "defend," and "deny," etc.

    2. There was an absence of all lady-like restraint in her language and manner most painful to see. She was possessed by some feverish excitement which made her distressingly loud when she laughed, and sinfully wasteful and capricious in what she ate and drank at lunch.

      Comparing to Betteredge's writing style which more focus on the description of character's physical appearance and story reveal personality; Miss Clack' writing style are more focusing on character's speaking attitude.

    3. In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must revert for a moment to the period before the assault

      Start from the beginning of this book, I noticed that many sentences were written in inverted order. Is this a popular writing style of the 19th centuries, or it just author's personal writing style?

  12. Jun 2021
  13. Apr 2021
  14. Dec 2020
  15. Sep 2020