Beginning Monday evening, February 9, from 6:00 to 7:00 CT, Writing Smartly will again offer its four-week online short course entitled Reading Closely to Write. Each week we will examine the structure and stylistic design of sentences from one short story (each averaging about 15 pages) written by a celebrated author. We will analyze the …
Author Archives: rultimo
An Edification
When we say that an essay we’ve read or a speech we’ve heard was edifying, what do we mean? To be edified refers to the idea of being improved by something morally. We’re not edified in reading a car repair manual or hearing a technical explanation of how electricity works, but we are when an …
Upcoming Short Course Announcement
Beginning Monday evening, February 9, from 6:00 to 7:00 CT, Writing Smartly will offer again its four-week online short course entitled Reading Closely to Write. Each week we will examine the structure and stylistic design of sentences from one short story (each averaging about 15 pages) written by a celebrated author. We will analyze the …
Counterfactuals
Counterfactual reasoning is an attempt to see what can be learned by assuming things otherwise than what they are. It’s an intellectually respectable game that can be played with almost any subject to see more deeply than we might have at first. In grammatical terms a counterfactual is a condition contrary to fact, and with …
Surface and Depth
Draw a square in your imagination, and then from the two top points extend diagonal lines to transform that square into a cube. A few more lines up, down, and crosswise, and what you first perceived as a flat surface has taken on volume, another dimension. We can accomplish this same effect in written composition, …