Therefore, for the purposes of this book, I’ll generalize outrageously and state that there are two kinds of writing. One is explanatory writing: writing that transmits existing information or ideas. Call it Type A writing. The other is exploratory writing: writing that enables us to discover what we want to say. Call it Type B. They are equally

“Reading, writing and thinking are all integrated,” said Kevin Byrne, associate professor of history. “An idea can have value in itself, but its usefulness diminishes to the extent that you can’t articulate it to someone else.

Every day we are assaulted by scientific or biomedical questions that we don’t even know how to think about, from toxic wastes and “Star Wars” and nuclear energy to acid rain and gene splicing and surrogate motherhood. Many of them are the legacy of scientists who now admit that they didn’t understand how their decisions would affect the quality of

Another powerful element in learning to write is motivation. Motivation is crucial to writing—students will write far more willingly if they write about subjects that interest them and that they have an aptitude for.

We are a society paralyzed by the inability to convey routine information—the inability of the executive to explain company policy in a memo to the staff, of the employee to explain his new idea in a proposal to the boss, of the bank to explain its “simplified” new bank statement to the customer, of the manufacturer to explain in a consumer manual

There are Newton’s three laws that describe

I edit for myself and I write for myself. I assume that if I consider something interesting or funny, a certain number of other people will too. If they don’t, they have two inalienable rights—they can fire the editor and they can stop reading the writer. Meanwhile I draw on two sources of energy that I commend to anyone trying to survive in this

But nouns are equally pictorial and helpful. I’m not talking (needless to say) about concept nouns. I mean the thousands of simple nouns, like “house” and “chair” and “earth” and “tree,” that denote the objects of everyday life and the properties of the world we live in. Unlike the long concept nouns, which tend to be of Latin origin and to end in

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.