The Finest Narrative Non-Fiction Essays
At the origin of all good non-fiction writing is someone who thought: I want to know more about that. I want to understand how it works. I want to know where it came from and who was responsible for it. I want to understand its implications. It is a child gazing at the stars.
every discipline has a literature—a body of good writing that students and teachers can use as a model; writing is learned mainly by imitation. Therefore I decided to look for the literature myself: to collect brief examples of good, accessible writing in a variety of academic disciplines.
William Zinsser • Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All
“I believe that the best magazine articles have at least two—and better if three—elements to them: access, narrative, and disclosure. That is: on-the-ground reporting; a story arc with a beginning, middle, and end; and revelations that move the scholarship forward. A great magazine article must also always have at its core a measure of conflict. We... See more
