The English Miscellany

Quintilian, a highly esteemed Latin rhetorician, argues that composition involves learning a skill. He compares composition with the craft of the musician and with the skills of the sportsman. In his larger project, writing is linked with civic participation, with the arts of cultivation, and with the progress from the natural savage to a state of civilization. Writing should aim to flow harmoniously. Quintilian's Institutes of the Orator , Book 9 (trans. charles Rollin, 1774), 143-146. I well know, that there are some, who will not allow of any care in composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, how uncouth soever they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more manly. If what first sprung from nature, indebted for nothing to care and industry, be only what they deem natural, I allow that the art of oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality.  For it is certain that the first men did not speak according to the ...

Today I am sharing the FURTHER READING list published in my book The Art of Connection: the Social Life of Sentences (Quibble Academic 2013): Amidon, Arlene. "Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?" Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 22.3 (1976): 423-437. Astington, Janet Wilde, Janette Pelletier, and Bruce Homer. "Theory of mind and epistemological development: The relation between children's second-order false-belief understanding and their ability to reason about evidence." New Ideas in Psychology 20.2 (2002): 131-144. Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer . Vintage, 2011. Baker, Linda. "Comprehension monitoring: Identifying and coping with text confusions." Journal of Literacy Research 11.4 (1979): 365-374. Bates, Elisabeth, Philip S. Dale, and Donna Thal. ...

If you have been enjoying my book, The Art of Connection , you might be interested to read what Alexander Bain had to say on the topic of Adversative conjunctions : Certain of the Adversative conjunctions are used to indicate the mutual bearing of consecutive sentences. Some of the members of this subdivision are termed Exclusive, because they indicate the exclusion of some circumstances that would otherwise be allowable. "Else," " otherwise," are the chief examples; they occasionally introduce sentences, but owing to the intimacy of union that they express, their chief use is to unite clauses. Those termed Alternative sometimes form a link between two sentences; for example, or and nor. When nor is used without neither preceding, it is commonly in the sense of and not: " Nor would he have been mistaken;" " And he would not have been mistaken." We may have one sentence commencing with either and the next with or; and so with ne...

If you own a Kindle, Nook, or other ebook reader you will be familiar with the problem that the majority of texts do not have fixed page numbers. They will also display the same text in different way. This means that the location of a quotation in one digital format will be different from another. Obviously if you are downloading a pdf there will be fixed page numbers to refer to. Readers who want to locate and check your quotations can of course simply search for key words within the text. Also, you can indicate which section of the book you are referring to by including a chapter reference. Therefore you ought to write in this style McCormick (2013) outlines the art of disputation (ch. 7) and the art of the supplement (ch. 6). and quotations like this McCormick (2013) argues that 'the use of transition words is highly effective in logical thinking' (ch 1.5). Note that in the example above, the reference helpfully also provides a note of the subsection 5 of chap...

Connected Brain Zones § 371. IV. The use of connectives . The words of connection and transition between clauses, members, and sentences, may be made, according to the skill or the awkwardness of the writer, sources of strength or of weakness. It is always a source of weakness for two prepositions, having different antecedents, to be co-ordinated in connection with a common subsequent . This mode of expression has been called "the splitting of particles;" a name not very applicable to it as it occurs in English construction. The proper name for it is the one implied in the italicized words above. The following is an example. "Though personally unknown to, I have always been an admirer of, Mr. Calhoun." The way to correct it is to complete the first clause, and let the last, if either, be elliptic; thus: "Though personally unknown to Mr. Calhoun, I have always admired him," or "been an admirer of him." It is pro...