Strunk and White parody
The Elements of Press Release Style
In favor of penmanship
Joanna Key favors penmanship.
Garner on writing in law school
More writing, more revision.
Theodore Dalrymple on handwriting
He draws an extreme and doubtful conclusion.
P. S. 131 for the win
A P.S. 131 student wins an essay contest.
The benefits of handwriting
There are many.
Cursive writing in Indiana
On the way out.
John Gruber, “Credit and Attribution”
A long and thoughtful post at Daring Fireball on giving credit where credit is due.
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011)
From the New York Times obituary
Patrick Leigh Fermor’s eye
Patrick Leigh Fermor describes a monastic cell.
“Death to high school English”
What are they doing in high-school English?
Review: How to Write a Sentence
Adam Haslett’s cover blurb presents the book as a worthy successor to an earlier classroom text: “Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style.” I’d welcome such a book, but How to Write a Sentence is nothing of the sort.
How to improve writing (no. 35)
“What does it mean to have a body like an elephant, but ‘much more so’?“
Moleskine app
“To my mind, the design involves the same analog-to-digital mistake that Apple’s Notes app makes.”
Secret writing, 1917–1918
From 1917-1918, recipes for invisible ink and directions for opening sealed letters without detection
How to improve writing (no. 34)
“Visiting guests.”
The earliest writing in Europe
3,350 years old
How to improve writing (no. 33)
A comma semicolonized, from Infinite Jest
NoteSlate
“[Y]ou will love the wooden feeling of writing or drawing.”
Three centuries of diaries
At the Morgan Library & Museum
Adam Wheeler, prose stylist
Here is a perfect example of what Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing calls “the pompous style.”
E-mail and punctuation
The effects of punctuation, typos, and voice on reader-response
How to improve writing (no. 32)
A passage from the book Higher Education?
How to improve writing (no. 31)
Avoid dangling modifiers.
David Foster Wallace's senior year
Two theses, lots of typing
A voice from a term-paper mill
Writing other people's papers
How to improve writing (no. 30)
A sentence from the New York Times
Stephen Sondheim's writing habits
Blackwings and legal pads
How to improve writing (no. 29)
Rewriting Verizon's prose
The new Blackwing pencil
An extended review, with photographs