The sense of style : the thinking person's guide to writing in the 21st century / Steven Pinker.
By: Pinker, Steven.
Description: pages cm.ISBN: 9780670025855 (hardback).Subject(s): English language -- Grammar | English language -- Style | LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Grammar & Punctuation | LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Style Manuals | REFERENCE / Writing SkillsGenre/Form: Print books.DDC classification: 808/.042 Summary: " A short and entertaining book on the modern art of writing well by New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing? Why should any of us care? In The Sense of Style, the bestselling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Rethinking the usage guide for the 21st century, Pinker doesn't carp about the decline of language or recycle pet peeves from the rulebooks of a century ago. Instead, he applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose. In this short, cheerful, and eminently practical book, Pinker shows how writing depends on imagination, empathy, coherence, grammatical knowhow,and an ability to savor and reverse-engineer the good prose of others. He replaces dogma about usage with reason and evidence, allowing writers and editors to apply the guidelines judiciously, rather than robotically, being mindful of what they are designed to accomplish. Filled with examples of great and gruesome prose, Pinker shows us how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right"--Summary: "Pinker has a lot of ideas and sometimes controversial opinions about writing and in this entertaining and instructive book he rethinks the usage guide for the 21st century. Don't blame the internet, he says, good writing has always been hard. It requires imagination, taking pleasure in reading, overcoming the difficult we all have in imaging what it's like to not know something we do know"--Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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On Shelf | PE1421 .P56 2014 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU0000000001540 |
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PE 1417 .V65 2002 Voices and values : a reader for writers | PE 1417 .V65 2002 Voices and values : a reader for writers | PE 1417 .V65 2002 Voices and values : a reader for writers | PE1421 .P56 2014 The sense of style : the thinking person's guide to writing in the 21st century / | PE1429 .Z5 2006 On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction / | PE1431 .C66 2016 Where's your argument? : how to present your academic argument in writing / | PE1431 .C75 2017 Critical thinking, reading, and writing : a brief guide to argument / |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
" A short and entertaining book on the modern art of writing well by New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing? Why should any of us care? In The Sense of Style, the bestselling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Rethinking the usage guide for the 21st century, Pinker doesn't carp about the decline of language or recycle pet peeves from the rulebooks of a century ago. Instead, he applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose. In this short, cheerful, and eminently practical book, Pinker shows how writing depends on imagination, empathy, coherence, grammatical knowhow,and an ability to savor and reverse-engineer the good prose of others. He replaces dogma about usage with reason and evidence, allowing writers and editors to apply the guidelines judiciously, rather than robotically, being mindful of what they are designed to accomplish. Filled with examples of great and gruesome prose, Pinker shows us how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right"--
"Pinker has a lot of ideas and sometimes controversial opinions about writing and in this entertaining and instructive book he rethinks the usage guide for the 21st century. Don't blame the internet, he says, good writing has always been hard. It requires imagination, taking pleasure in reading, overcoming the difficult we all have in imaging what it's like to not know something we do know"--