Got some explaining to do?
I suspect that language was developed to serve the needs of observed, perceived, or recollected experience—the nonfiction motive. For example, “There are wooly, mammoth creatures at the waterhole.” Or: “Let me explain how your mate was gored by a wooly mammoth.”
- Robert L. Root Jr.,
“The Nature of Nonfiction”
Writing and thought are inextricably bound. Without clear thinking, there can be no clear writing. Writing well means thinking well.
- Donald Hall & Sven
Birkerts, “Writing Well”
Readers will accept your claim only if they understand your argument, but they won’t understand your argument if they can’t understand your sentences.
- Wayne Booth, Gregory
Colomb, & Joseph Williams,
“The Craft of Research”
Writers do the hard psychological work of trying not to be ignorant.
- Carol Bly, “Beyond
the Writers’ Workshop”
