ESSAYS AND ESSAY WRITING PART I § 1. TO THE READER THE chief object of the following rules is to protect you from mistakes. Caesar frequently breaks the laws of the Latin Primer. But you must not. This book is not intended for an embryo Carlyle or John Bright. Genius is above rules; but you presumably are not a genius, because you seek assistance such as you will find here. This book ought to do two things for you. It ought to give you a certain number of ideas, and to teach you to express them in plain English. 3. A sentence is the expression of one idea. 4. Every sentence must contain a verb. 5. 6. 7. Before you begin to write, map out your subject into paragraphs. A paragraph contains a division of the subject. Write the exact title of the Essay at the top of your first page. Keep looking at this title, and ask yourself constantly if you are writing to the point. 8. On no account be funny or flippant. 9. Do not try to write in a high-flown style. A IO. II. 12. 13. Make a rough copy, of course. When you have finished your fair copy, read it through. Put in any words you have left out, and carefully examine your stops. § 3. TECHNICAL RULES Leave a margin about an inch wide, on the left side. The first line of a paragraph should begin half-an-inch to the right of the margin. The second and following lines begin at the margin. memorable vicissitudes of fortune. Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth of December 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was. 14. Never use brackets. 15. 16. So far as possible, avoid dividing a word at the end of a line. Unless it is a long word, put it, by preference, bodily in the next line. Do not Quoted words, whether of a writer or a speaker, must be put between two pairs of inverted commas. forget the second pair. 17. The initial letter of a title should be a capital. |