5: Crochets and Convictions
”Art is exactitude winged by intuition”
Information and Noise
- Redundancy is noise
- Misuse of words is noise
- Vagueness is noise
- Jargon is noise
- Pomposity is noise
- Clutter is noise
”Information is your sacred product, and noise is its pollutant. Guard the message with your life.”
Obscurity
”…no one that has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief”
— Peter Medawar in Pluto’s Republicquotewriting
Lifesaving Verbs
- Active verbs over concept nouns
- Active verbs should use a pronoun or noun
7: Art and Artists
A broadly educated man, he wears his erudition lightlyquote
- Use self-deprecation to build rapport with your readers
- Want to believe they are reading someone that is intelligent but also humble and with whom they can identify
Still less do we like to think that art might one day peter out. We should prefer to think—and in my opinion we are quite right to think—that the masterpieces of our own day can perfectly well stand comparison with the great achievements of the past.quote — John Russell The best art of the last hundred years came into being on occasions when nothing from the past would fill the billquote — John Russell
8: The Natural World
- Including human detail within a heavy scientific or technical passage can make it more readable because the reader can relate
- It is a writer’s prerogative to use a technical or esoteric term, but it is also their obligation to explain it to the reader and make them feel comfortable with it
12: Worlds of Music
Beneath all the graces that charm us with their civility, his writing moves, finally, with sequential logic, as all good writing must.