Thinking Through Writing
in today’s sunday times, janadas devan wrote about how his son was penalised by his teacher for writing an essay without a proper introduction and conclusion (the thesis-proof-conclusion model).
this model, while popular for 400 years, is not the only model and devan describes a good alternative - the writing of george orwell who “starts in medias res, in the middle of things, with an arresting incident, observation or fact.”
Orwellian writing:
‘Soon after I arrived at Crossgates… I began wetting my bed.’
How a delightful account of how his boarding-school days begins
‘In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people - the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.’
The first sentence of one of his most famous pieces, Shooting An Elephant, an account of his stint in the Imperial Police in Burma
‘As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.’
The beginning of an essay on Marrakech
devan recommends Susan R. Horton’s Thinking Through Writing as “one of the most useful textbooks on expository writing” he has seen.
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