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COPYRIGHT, 1913, LY

R. W. BROWN AND N. W. BARNES.

COPYRIGHT, 1913, IN GREAT BRITAIN

ART OF WRITING ENGLISH

E. P. I

PREFACE

THIS book is the outgrowth of two convictions. The first of these is that greater emphasis ought to be placed upon the fact that writing is not merely self-expression, but communication; in other words, that composition must be regarded chiefly as "a double-ended process" in which the writer is successful only when he has produced the desired effect upon his audience. The second is that this communication through writing is an art, and must be studied very much as other arts are studied.

The authors have endeavored, first of all, to show the student that writing is a normal kind of activity. They have, therefore, thought it necessary to do more than state a few well-established principles and discuss the rhetorical forms of composition, important as these matters are. As may be observed in the introductory chapter, they believe that the student should early come into the learner's frame of mind by seeing the advantage of being able to write well. They are convinced, moreover, that when the student is once ready to learn, the teacher ought to help him find material in which he can have genuine interest, to guide him in making his vocabulary more serviceable, to show him what the actual processes of composing are, and to suggest means of testing the effectiveness of what he does. Unless the student can be brought in some such manner to feel that his work is a very natural kind of thing to do, he is likely to look upon all writing, as well as every course in composition, as something mechanical and quite removed from his life as a thing apart."

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The authors hold two or three other opinions about method of presentation. They believe it is a grave educational error to teach composition as if every attempt at writing were an effort to produce literature. On the other hand, they believe it is no

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