Readability

“ Clearness.—Next in importance to accuracy comes interest. A story must be interesting to be read. Every paragraph must be clear. Its relation to every other paragraph must be evident, and the story as a whole must be presented so that it may be understood and enjoyed by the reader with as small expenditure of mental effort as possible. Ideas that are connected in thought, either by virtue of their sequence in time or for other reasons, must be kept together, and ideas that are separated in thought must be kept apart. ”

“ And so also is the practice of previously conversing or writing on the subject you are about to study.' Reading can produce a beneficial result only in proportion to the extent and accuracy of information previously stored in the mind of the reader. Such information is like the roots of some flourishing oak; every fresh fact is, as it were, a new fibre confirming and strengthening the growth of the tree, and attracting nourishment from new soil. ”

“ There are not, however, many references to book study; and such as we find are chiefly directed to the one aim of painful and laborious examination, first, of an author's meaning, and next of the goodness of his arguments. Two or three sentences will give the clue. "Those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. ”

“ Many of us are inclined to substitute other ideas than those properly conveyed by the words of the writer, and so get confused or incomplete or inaccurate ideas. The ability to determine exactly what images the writer suggests, and what ideas his language expresses, is the first requisite of scholarship and an important element of success in life.
EXERCISES A. The first step in acquiring knowledge is to determine what it is that we do not know. Just which word or words in each of the following sentences keep you from understanding the full meaning of the sentence? ”

“ Of all things which he required me to do, there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpetually lost his temper with me. He had thought much on the principles of the art of reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the inflections of the voice, or modulation, as writers on elocution call it (in contrast with articulation on the one side, and expression on the other) , and had reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a sentence. ”

“ What scholarship has agreed upon as the meaning of a word, that must be its meaning for us. Words come and words go, and change with the passing of time. We must seek, then, the sense of the word as used at the time of the work or writer studied. We must, further, determine the classification of the document concerned, whether technical, scientific, or literature for art's sake. ”

“ The reader, if himself acquainted with the true language, finds it impossible to realise or enter into the story, being constantly reminded that he is reading a modern fiction. What I object to read, therefore, I object to write for the reading of others. Where circumstances, as in this case, make perfect accuracy impossible, it seems to me the next best thing is to come as near it as they will permit. ”

“ And so it will be found that the sources of material are almost unlimited—limited in fact, only by the ability of the writer to see the significance of a story, a figure of speech or an item of news, and connect it up with his particular proposition.
But gathering and classifying material available for arguments is only preliminary work. A wide knowledge of human nature is necessary to select from these arguments those that will appeal to the particular prospect or class of prospects you are trying to reach. ”

“ It is doubtless very true, that a man of study and reflection, accustomed deliberately to weigh every expression and analyze every sentence, and to be influenced by nothing which does not bear the test of the severest examination, may be most impressed by the quiet, unpretending reading of a well digested essay or dissertation. To some men the concisest statement of a subject, with nothing to adorn the naked skeleton of thought, is most forcible. They are even impatient of any attempt to assist its effect by fine writing, by emphasis, tone, or gesture. ”

“ But in reading, as in listening, the phrase presents itself, as a whole, to the mind; rules which coordinate the composition have no force until its parts are understood. It is, in fact, by language that we comprehend the grammar, not by grammar that we comprehend language. ”

“ In making up the volume I have drawn less on documents,—charters, messages, resolutions, declarations, instructions, statutes, and treaties,—than on those kinds of material in which the personality of the writer plays a greater part,—journals, letters, reports, discussions, and reminiscences. Whenever a piece could be found which is both characteristic and well written, it has been chosen over a piece which is equally accurate but has less literary merit. ”

“ First, we must form the habit of observing the meanings and values of words, the structure of sentences, of paragraphs, and of entire compositions as we read standard literature―just as we have been trying to form the habit of observing the spelling of words, and the logical relationships of words in sentences. In order that we may know what to look for in our observation we must analyse a little, but we will not imagine that we shall learn to do a thing by endless talk about doing it. ”

“ If every word is carefully chosen, and used in an exact way to convey as much as possible, it requires no less careful reading;—as in some of our Science Primers, where the material for an ordinary chapter is condensed and reduced to the crystal of a single sentence, that demands almost equal exactness in obtaining its solution, if one would absorb all the learning compressed in so small a compass. ”

“ In reading nearly any book or paper, there are frequent references to a thousand and one matters which the general reader would like to understand a little more about, and which, unless he has a large library of costly books to refer to, he can learn nothing ”

“ If they can learn to read with tolerable ease, and to write to a certain extent, they will at any rate have acquired something, and the rest must be left—and may with perfect confidence be left—to themselves. ”

“ He would insure greater accuracy by the study and practice of the use of words. Thought and speech being inseparable, it follows that we cannot use the humblest processes of thought—cannot resolve to take our bath hot or cold, or decide what to order for breakfast—without forecasting it in some form of words. Words, in fine, he urges, are the only currency in which we can exchange thought even with ourselves. ”

“ Learned men shed text-books as the oak sheds acorns, and by their fruits ye shall know them. Open almost any primary text-book or school book in America, and you will, on almost every page of it, find inelegancies of usage, roughnesses, inaccuracies, and occasional errors of grammar. ”

“ CHAPTER III. STYLE. Before beginning to read proof, a man usually prepares himself by learning how to make the technical marks used in correcting; he then reads a chapter on the use of capitals; takes up a grammar, and reviews the rules of punctuation; and by reading, and conversing with readers, gets such helps as give him a good degree of confidence. ”

“ I labour to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life; and, in particular, those kinds of technical terms that so frequently occur in Bodies of Divinity; those modes of speaking which men of reading are intimately acquainted with, but which to common people are an unknown tongue. Yet I am not assured, that I do not sometimes slide into them unawares: It is so extremely natural to imagine, that a word which is familiar to ourselves is so to all the world.
4. Nay, my design is, in some sense, to forget all that ever I have read in my life. ”

“ The variety of subjects brought before the reader, the absence of deep thought or real principles, concealed by an attractive and brilliant style of writing, dissipate the mind, and gradually destroy, not only the habit, but even the power of serious reflection. ”

“ Yet the very habit of proposing these questions, however they may be answered, will involve the calling of ourselves to account for our reading, and the consideration of it in the light of wisdom and duty.
The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a manifoldly greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to the reader an appropriate power, a force of affinity, by which he insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. ”

“ People want him to put guide-posts in his books, apparently, or before his sentences: ‘TO ——’ or ‘TEN MILES TO THE NEAREST VERB’—the inevitable fate of any writer, man or woman, who dares to ask, in this present day, that his reader shall stop to think. If a man cannot read as he runs, he does not read a book at all. ”

“ The rapid reader cannot stop to refer to the dictionary for words that he does not know. Although the special feature writer is limited to terms familiar to the average reader, he need not confine himself to commonplace, colloquial diction; most readers know the meaning of many more words than they themselves use in everyday conversation. ”

“ Avoid especially the common faults that denote the semi-illiterate man or woman. If you make errors that would not be made by a twelve-year-old child, your composition will get scant consideration from an intelligent reader. While revising, question everything, spelling, grammar, choice of words, punctuation; question the usefulness of each idea, and the arrangement of the parts of the completed composition. ”

“ We cannot open a page without being impressed by the sifting and winnowing of authorities,—the variety, extent, minuteness of his reading,—which left little doubt on the mind of the reader, that if accuracy were attainable, he had exerted every means within reach to attain it. ”

“ However great may be a reader’s capacity for memorizing trifling details, it is next to impossible to keep minute verbal differences on different mental shelves. After the big book is bound, one will be likely to find a mingling of styles ”

“ They aim, for the most part, exclusively at the acquisition of this art. Despising the order and the wise slowness of Nature, they break the chain which binds together the great purposes of language, neglect direct reading—the inexhaustible source of instruction and intellectual enjoyment—and listening—the most useful part of conversation—and of necessity resort to processes little in harmony with our organization and the nature of language. ”

“ Not only should you refrain from using anything you cannot see from the point where you have placed yourself, but you should not use all the things you can see. In the exercises on scientific description you have been observing, as completely as you possibly could, a given subject, and putting into your composition all the facts you could see or learn about. In literary description the process is quite different. You must train yourself to leave out a great many details, and to select those you use with great care for their value in aiding you to give your reader a lifelike picture. ”

“ In the analysis of words and forms we are constantly led from the central point of discussion. To recur, however, from these collateral unravelings, to the main thread of inquiry, at as short and frequent intervals as possible, and thus to preserve the chain of conclusions and proofs, is so important that without keeping the object distinctly in view, I should despair of conveying any clear impressions of those grammatical features, which impart to the language its peculiar character. ”

“ Accuracy and Interest.—For words, as for sentences and stories, the same law holds,—accuracy and interest. If one's words are accurate and stimulate interest in the reader, they are good.
171. Accuracy.—Accuracy comes first. It is necessary always to write with a nice regard for exact shades of meaning. As Flaubert declared, "Whatever one wishes to say, there is only one noun to express it, only one verb to give it life, only one adjective to qualify it. ”

“ The Author trusts that he has conveyed the information to the reader in the most simple manner, his object being to make it a book of instruction rather than a mere work of words, whose tendency is rather to perplex than aid. ”

“ One reader abandoned writing these words, for two reasons: the first, that a compositor, when correcting, inserted them in the text, making an astonishing sentence; the second, that the marked passage,—a piece of close, logical reasoning,—after being carefully scanned by the author, was brought to the reader, with a very earnest request that he would {p43} point out what justice there was in that bluff remark. It is enough to draw what beginners in writing call “straight marks” across the matter, and also in the margin. ”

“ Our limited powers are similarly perplexed and overtaxed in reading the inexhaustible pages of nature, for they are written over and over uncountable times, written in characters of every size and color, sentences composed of sentences, every part of a character a sentence. ”

“ Ease and flexibility of articulation, quickness in catching the drift of ideas, and readiness in varying the tones of the voice in the utterance of words so as impressively to portray their latent sentiment,—all this is possible with those alone to whom difficult word-forms, complex sentence-structures, and the infinite variety and play of thought and emotion, are more or less familiar through such a wide range of reading as only the silent prosecution of it makes possible. ”