34 Matching Annotations
  1. 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).

    1. “Hemingway read Garnett’s Dostoyevsky and he said it influenced him,” he continued. “But Hemingway was just as influenced by Constance Garnett as he was by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Garnett breaks things into simple sentences, she Hemingwayizes Dostoyevsky, if you see what I mean.”
  2. Jun 2023
    1. Each volume was bound andnumbered, and the set was titled whatwe had ended so many of our letters

      Really well written ending to this piece

    2. a bundle of cards withwarm words as palpable as the straw-berry cream cake, for which I lusted

      Good wording

    3. OVIDstill had some fangs,

      Good wording

  3. Apr 2023
    1. especially frightening was how hishair lay flat on his pale forehead

      Parallel to beginning where Pyoter is looking at his dead body in the coffin; he says the same thing

    2. 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

    3. 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.

    4. His eyeswere tearful and such as are found in impure boys of thirteen or fourteen

      Wording; Impure. They do not yet know how to perform.

    5. noticing that the table was threatened with �sh

      I like the wording a lot

    6. (generally the whole drawing room was filled withknickknacks and furniture)

      This parenthetical seems oddly out of place?

    7. snap.

      The whole timing of this prior section is genius! Very funnily timed!

  4. 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.)

  5. Jan 2023
    1. Woit does not, for the most part, follow the death march of proposition, lemma, proof. He writes in the style of a theoretical physicist.

      "death march of proposition, lemma, proof"

      This is a bit harsh n'cest pas?

  6. Dec 2022
  7. 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

    2. David Brooks talks about what he calls the “theory of maximum taste.” It’s similar to what Murphy is saying. “Exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness,” Brooks writes. “If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you [don’t].”
  8. Aug 2022
    1. Selections from CarlyleEdited by H. W. BOYNTON. i2mo, cloth, 288 pages. Price, 75 cents.

      And here I was not knowing who Carlyle was just a day or two ago and now I'm seeing advertisements for collections of his work! 😁

      Apparently I've just been reading the wrong things and jumping back to the early 21st century is where it's all at.

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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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    Annotators

    1. https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2013/08/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book/

      An early essay from Ryan Holiday about commonplace books including how, why, and their general value.

      Notice that the essay almost reads as if he's copying out cards from his own system. This is highlighted by the fact that he adds dashes in front 23 of his paragraphs/points.

  9. 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.

    1. Argument that popular modern dictionaries are taking the wrong approach by defining words as plainly as possible. That makes it no fun to use them except for definitions.

      For writing at least, using something like the original Websters dictionary is a great help to improve your style.

  10. Jul 2021
    1. A charming letter!

      One writing style of Ezra Jennings I noticed it that he likes to use exclamation mark.

    2. 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.

    3. 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.

    4. 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?

  11. Jun 2021
  12. Apr 2021
    1. The best procedure is the one you don’t need. If the UI is crystal clear and leads the customer through a task, a procedure isn’t necessary. Start there.
  13. Dec 2020
    1. Include articles, such as the. Articles help readers and translation software identify the nouns and modifiers in a sentence. Examples Empty the container. The empty container
  14. Sep 2020