Template

“ Templates are shortcuts placed within sets of double curly brackets to perform various functions throughout Wikisource. As you proofread and edit texts in Wikisource, you can use templates to aid in formatting, navigation, and a variety of other tasks.
Formatting Templates Formatting templates are used to change the way that text displays when being read. ”

“ Acting upon this principle of practical usefulness, I have also made the index very inclusive of various kinds of motifs. Sometimes the interest of a student of traditional narrative may be centered on a certain type of character in a tale, sometimes on an action, sometimes on attendant circumstances of the action. Hence I have endeavored to use all the elements of tales that have in the past been objects of special study and similar elements that are likely to serve as such objects in the future. A glance at the synopsis will indicate the varied nature of the contents of the classification. ”

“ Body of the Story.—In writing the body of the story, the first thing to strive for is proper coherence with the lead. This caution is worth particular heed when the lead contains a single-sentence quotation, an indirect question, or a paragraph of direct statement from somewhere in the body of the speech. Few things are more incongruous in a story than a clever epigrammatic lead and a succession of quoted statements following, none of which exhibits a definite bearing on the lead. ”

“ It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is constructed with regard to Unity, Mass, and Coherence. And as a whole composition treats a single theme, so a paragraph treats one division of a theme. It has been defined as a composition in miniature. A paragraph is a sentence or a group of sentences serving a single purpose in the development of a theme. The purpose may be simply to announce the theme-subject, to make a conclusion, to indicate a transition; but in the great majority of cases its purpose is to treat a single topic. ”

“ When the presentation of a picture is our central purpose, we attempt to present it as it appears to us, and select details that will enable others to form the desired image; but if we desire to set forth how a scene affected us, we must choose details that will make our reader feel as we felt.
+137. Necessity of Observing our Impressions.+—In order to write a description which shall give our impression of an object or scene, we must know definitely what that impression is. ”

“ The methods of developing the paragraph topic will naturally form a part of the work of paragraph construction, particularly in the second semester, when the principles of exposition are studied. The application of the same principles of unity, emphasis, and coherence to the whole theme, where it consists of a number of paragraphs, may also be developed, for in the second year it is desirable to have the students write longer themes, as well as the short ones. ”

“ Hence, the Plot is the imitation of the action—for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By Character I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents. Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated. Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one the manner, and three the objects of imitation. ”

“ Such grumblers, however, do not duly consider that the imaginative faculty invariably depicts the objects it would represent as grand and impressive, with a few striking touches, rather than in fulness of detail, and that thereby it lends to the image more of character, solemnity, and dignity. A thousand times have I heard the complaint that the objects for a knowledge of which we are originally indebted to description, invariably disappoint us when we see them with our own eyes. ”

“ The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to the words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition. ”

“ Just as description of characters or of scene and setting is one method of beginning short stories and novels, so also it constitutes a form of introduction for an article. In both cases the aim is to create immediate interest by vivid portrayal of definite persons and places. The concrete word picture, like the concrete instance in a narrative beginning, makes a quick and strong appeal. An element of suspense or mystery may be introduced into the description, if a person, a place, or an object is described without being identified by name until the end of the portrayal. ”

“ Style, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the art that handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an epitome of literary method, the most rigid and simplest of instruments has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of arts. Thence the application of the word has been extended to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the activities of man. ”

“ Few of us can be original, but we can all be honest and industrious.
VII. Organization
Before you write, make a plan. It is as necessary in composition as in building. If the nature of your subject or the kind and quantity of your material render it desirable to deviate from the model, do not hesitate to do so. As a rule, however, it will be best to follow its plan rather closely. At all events, work from some plan. Don’t get the idea that you can dash off a finished exposition in a few minutes. ”

“ OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF COMPOSITION AND STYLE The following is a fairly complete outline of the essential elements of rhetorical theory as applied in composition work and in a study of structure and style. As such, it is designed primarily for the teacher who desires to review any part of the subject in preparation for teaching composition. Many portions may be used in the class room in a simplified form, to supplement or summarize parts of the text-books in rhetoric and composition. ”

“ Whenever this perfection of expression acquires such force that it transmutes the subject and transports the hearer or reader, then and there the Grand Style exists, for so long, and in such a degree, as the transmutation of the one and the transportation of the other lasts. ”

“ Description of Persons: Character Sketches.+—The general principles of description are applicable to the description of a person, and should be followed for the purpose of presenting a clear and vivid image. Our interest, however, so naturally runs beyond the appearance and is concerned with the character, that most descriptions of persons become character sketches. ”

“ One writer, for instance, assumes that style is a combination of clearness, force and elegance; another looks upon style as a blending of a certain abstract perfection of writing with the personal element, which at best is manner and at worst is mannerism, while still a third considers style as something apart from the personal equation,—a sort of ideal goal towards which we press, but which we never attain. ”

“ In the presentation of a theme the speaker or writer is prone to arrange his material in a scheme which may be very wise for the purpose intended for distinct presentation and clear understanding. Such a piece of valuable literature may live, and the schematization may be taken as a classification with disastrous results. ”

“ They are arranged in a new design to suit every new theme that a writer takes in hand; we see them alternated, united, imposed one on another, this point of view blended with that, dramatic action treated pictorially, pictorial description rendered dramatically—and these words I use throughout, it will be understood, in the special sense that I have indicated. In well-fashioned work it is always interesting to discover how method tends to be laid upon method, so that we get, as it were, layers and stratifications in the treatment of a story. ”

“ For the most noticeable point in this studiously wayward and laboriously erratic design is that the principle of composition is as conspicuous by its absence as the breath of inspiration: that the artist, the scholar, the disciple, the student of classic models, is as indiscoverable as the spontaneous humourist or poet. ”

“ Here we touch upon an important principle which underlies this whole matter. The secret of charm in style lies in character. You have all heard innumerable times the saying that “Style is the man.” In other words, style as a matter of structure in composition is the indication of what a man can do; style as a matter of quality is an indication of what he is.
The ways in which individuality shows itself are numerous. Each writer, for instance, may be said to make his own vocabulary. ”

“ I went so far as to say that no picture could have any sense of dignity without the quality I have named. Everything in the work should, in some special degree, contribute to the first idea. Nothing should be introduced for the sake of variety. ”

“ We cannot, then, in any composition have too definite a conception. We must, at any sacrifice of detail, bring out the main expression and meaning. Every group of figures must be in the strictest relation to each other and to the central interest or expression of the design. ”

“ Intelligent and scholarly editing, thoughtful consideration for all the several needs of students as well as readers, liberal and judicious provision in the matter of accessories, a cultivated and refined taste in decoration, and a true feeling for typographical elegance in each respect of paper, type, margins, edgings, illustrations and binding unite to give this volume a character of genuine excellence and an aspect of chaste elegance such as are not often seen in a single example. ”

“ The third canon of style is the occasional omission of a verb or of the predicate. Nothing is more agreeably surprising, and nothing more effective. I have known an honest retired major-general, while reading a novel in his club, to stop puzzling at one place for an hour or more in his bewilderment at this delightful trick, and for years after he would exclaim with admiration at the style of the writer. ”

“ My Lord, the Decorations of Style are formed out of those several Schemes and Figures, which are contrived to express the Passions and Motions of our Minds in our Speech; to give Life and Ornament, Grace and Beauty, to our Expressions. I shall not undertake the Rhetoricians Province, in giving Your Lordship an Account of all the Figures they have invented, and those several Ornaments of Writing, whose Grace and Commendation lie in being used with judgment and Propriety. ”

“ And the whole duty of beautiful typography is not to substitute for the beauty or interest of the thing thought and intended to be conveyed by the symbol, a beauty or interest of its own, but, on the one hand, to win access for that communication by the clearness and beauty of the vehicle, and on the other hand, to take advantage of every pause or stage in that communication to interpose some characteristic and restful beauty in its own art. ”

“ But the next step in composing, which has been mentioned throughout the book, is more necessary in argumentation than in any other form of expression. You must not only have an outline in mind for what you are about to say, but that outline should be written, and almost as much time and thought should be given to it as to the composition itself; for clear thought is the great essential in argumentation, and a carefully prepared outline is the greatest help to clear thought.
88. The Introduction.—There are three parts to every outline for a discussion or argument. ”

“ It may increase, but it must never diminish. Here is that special aspect of design which we call construction, or plot. By interest I mean the interest of the story itself, and not the interest of the continual play of the author's mind on his material. In proportion as the interest of the story is maintained, the plot is a good one. In so far as it lapses, the plot is a bad one. ”

“ The planning of a new book, from the determination of the shape of page and proper width of margin to the selection of the style and size of type in which each of its many parts should be set, is a subject too broad to be fairly treated in a limited space. ”

“ This design, this composition, this pattern, whether it be of a story as a whole or of a sentence or a phrase, is as essential to a piece of writing as is the design or composition to a picture. It satisfies the emotional need of the child which is as essential in real education as is the intellectual. ”

“ Amateurs in literary composition soon acquire the bad habit of writing carelessly; they spell strange names in two or more different ways; they form capital letters, and even the small lower-case letters, so obscurely that one word may be mistaken for another ”

“ And the outline of the one is complementary to the outline of the other; where the woman’s outline sinks in the man’s sticks out, and vice versa. Mentally and physically it is the same; they are, in fact, the two parts of that great jig-saw puzzle, Humanity. ”

“ The paper, type and ink are the body, in which its soul is domiciled. And these three, soul, body, and habilament, are a triad which ought to be adjusted to one another by the laws of harmony and good sense. ”

“ It does no harm, as I said at the outset of this course, for the most advanced audience to go back now and then to the primer of art,—to think upon the meaning of an elementary term. Nor is it an easy thing to formulate clear statements of qualities which we instantly recognize or miss in any human production, and for which we have a ready, a traditional, nomenclature. ”

“ Even the humorous concluding scenes have traits of special grace, retaining in less emphatic passages a stray lire or word of power, as it seems, so that we watch to the end for the traces where the nobler hand has glanced along, leaving its vestiges, as if accidentally or wastefully, in the rising of the style. ”