The English Miscellany

A Traditional Card Catalogue Critical evaluations and literature reviews employ an academic discourse. I've started to compose a list of the most frequently used words and phrases : Accentuated differences Acclaimed authors According to Account Acknowledge the issue Addresses Addresses the contradictions Adequate Adopts Advances the idea Almost all Analyses Arbitrary categories Argues Argument Assesses Attempts to challenge Bogged down Bold Breaks new ground Brief discussion Brings together By ignoring this Care with which Centres on Certain types of Challenges Charts Cited Combines analyses of Comments on Compelling argument Comprehensive Conceptual framework Concise Confesses Confides Connects Considered Contains Contradictions Contributors Trinity Library Dublin Conveys the sense Convincing Covers a range of topics Critics Debates about Dense literature Describes the ...

Most writers and intrigued by the idea that they might be more productive. Some writers want to become prolific. Some writers, such as Shakespeare, were able to churn out two or more major works every year; others, such as Charles Dickens or Walter Scott, astonish us by the sheer quantity of their work. I was surprised to discover recently that my writing notebook lists plans for 23 books. Clearly some of these projects are little more than a title and an outline. So the problem is not having ideas, it’s more a question of having the time, the discipline and the confidence to see them through to completion as published works. In short, I am now trying to increase my productivity by researching some of the recurring ideas typically adopted by successful writers. While doing some research recently on translations of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata , I cam across the impressive productivity of JackLindsay , who produced 170 creative and non-fiction works during his long career. ...

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...