1. A REVIEW OF RHETORICAL PRINCIPLES. 2. THE ART OF COMPOSITION.-3. ESSAYS.-4. READING AND COMPOSITION. 1. A Review of Rhetorical Principles. This volume is intended to guide students in their first systematic attempts at serious writing on a scale larger than that of the single paragraph. We must assume, therefore, that they have previously been trained in the simple principles that lie at the basis of all good composition. In some cases, young people have stumbled on these principles for themselves in their own instinctive efforts to express their thoughts; in others, their attention has been called to them by skilful teachers, who have assisted them in their efforts by hints and precepts that have revealed to them the principles underlying the art. In most cases, however, as is proper, the pupil has received, B by the middle of his high school course, some systematic instruction in these matters through the study of a text-book under the direction of his teacher. We must now, before going further, summarize the results of this almost indispensable preliminary instruction. We shall follow closely the rhetorical system explained in the author's First High School Course in this subject; but there is so great a uniformity in the minds of teachers and writers as to the principles involved, that the following summary will indicate, it is hoped, the essential elements in any good textbook on formal rhetoric. It is obvious that a writer's main purposes in composition are (1) that what he writes should be understood by the reader; (2) that what he writes should impress the reader forcibly; and (3) that what he writes should impress the reader favorably, i.e. impress him by the neatness and accuracy and skill with which the author has accomplished his task. The three great qualities of good composition may, therefore, be said to be clearness, force, and elegance. We shall be aided in securing these qualities of style if we regard each piece of writing as a mechanism composed of several parts. Let us call a piece of writing that is complete in itself a whole composition. This usually consists of a group of paragraphs. Each paragraph is, moreover, a group of sentences, and each sentence is a group of words. We must, then, secure the qualities at which we aim either (1) by the choice of words, or (2) by the grouping of words in sentences, or (3) by the grouping of sentences in paragraphs, or (4) by the grouping of paragraphs in a whole composition.1 The theory of the word is simple. Though the choice of words may show the utmost art, the elementary principles controlling choice are easily understood. They are (1) that a word must be in good English use (i.e. not a barbarism), under penalty of offending the reader's taste or being unintelligible to him; (2) that it must be used in the sense usually ascribed to it, under penalty of producing the same result; (3) that it must be the word best fitted, by its length, its derivation, and its greater or less definiteness of meaning, to play its part in the expression of a given idea, awakening not unpleasant or incongruous associations, but those most in harmony with the object in view. Turning now to laws governing groups of words, the student should remember (1) that the grammatical structure of a sentence should stand out clearly, and (2) that a sentence may by its length and form – whether periodic, loose, or balanced be more or He should less effective under given circumstances. further bear in mind three principles that govern not only the grouping of words in a sentence, but the grouping of sentences in a paragraph, and the group 1 The whole composition may in some cases, of course, be a single paragraph, complete in itself; the paragraph may, in rare instances, consist of a single sentence; and it is within the bounds of possibility that the sentence should consist of a single word. |