Expository WritingMervin James Curl, 2013 - 324 sidor Expository Writing It would not be rash to say that more expository thinking is done than any other kind of mental activity. The child who dismantles a clock to find its secret is doing expository thinking; the official, of however complicated a business, who ponders ways and means, is trying to satisfy his business curiosity; the artist who studies the effect of balance, of light and shade, of exclusion or inclusion, is thinking in exposition; politicians are ceaselessly active in explaining to themselves how they may, and to their constituents how they did. We cannot escape Exposition. The question then arises, since this form of writing is always with us how can we make it effective and enjoyable?
All writing should be interesting; all really effective writing does interest. It may not be required that every reader be interested in every bit of writing—that would be too much to hope for in a world where sympathies are unfortunately so restricted. To peruse a directory of Bangkok, if one has no possible acquaintance in that city, might become tedious, though one might draw pleasure from the queer names and the suggestions of romance. But if one has a lost friend somewhere in New York, and hopes that the directory will achieve discovery, the bulky and endless volume immediately takes on the greatest interest. Lincoln, driven at length to write a recommendation for a book, to escape the importunities of an agent, wisely, whimsically, wrote, "This is just the right kind of book for any one who desires just this kind of book." Wide though his sympathies were, he recognized that not every one enjoys[Pg 3] everything. The problem of the writer of exposition is to make as wide an appeal as he can.
Interest in reading is of two kinds: satisfaction and stimulation. And each of these may be either intellectual or emotional or both. The interest of satisfaction largely arises when the questions which the reader brings with him to his reading are answered. A reader who desires to know what is done with the by-products in a creamery, where the skim milk goes to, will be satisfied—and interested—when he learns the complete list of uses, among them the fact that skim milk is largely made into the white buttons that make our underclothing habitable. The reader who leaves an article about these by-products with the feeling that he has been only half told is sure to be dissatisfied, and therefore uninterested. In the same way, when a reader picks up an article or a book with the desire to be thrilled with romance or wonder, to be taken for the time away from the business of the world, to be wrenched with pity for suffering or with admiration for achievement—in other words, when a reader brings a hungry emotion to his reading—if he finds satisfaction, he is interested. |
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... Truth, had an ideal reaction to life, so far as interest is concerned. If, scanning the horizon for interest, he had bethought himself of the rather impolite advice of the Muse to Sir Philip Sidney, "'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in ...
... Truth with infinite humor and profound satisfaction." To make clear, to explain,—that is the task of exposition. Such writing does not have the excitement of the fightingring, which we find in argument, nor does it attain the lyric ...
... truths of existence, to satisfy the reader's groping curiosity, and also to thrill the reader with pity and terror or with high good humor or the unrestrained laughter of roaring delight. In so far as the author accomplishes his purpose ...
... truth, and he appears more at length in the last two clauses of the selection, where he definitely set the approval of his own heart upon Lord Morley's attitude. The third influence, that of the reader, appears also, for when you ...
... truth. It is sacred and inviolate. He would not admit with Erasmus that "there are seasons when we must even conceal truth," still less with Fouché that "les paroles sont faites pour cacher nos pensées."[2] His regard for the truth is ...