by Philip Yaffe


The absolute, unalterable, incontestable hallmark of a acceptable expository (non-fiction) issue is its clarity. Whatever other attributes it may have, provided it isn't clear, it isn't good, Likewise, whether it isn't good, it isn't clear.


Lucidity lifetime the prime criterion, what credible consociation could there between the essential bunk of Lewis Carroll's poem "The Jabberwocky" (in Alice finished the Looking Glass) and favorable expository writing? A abundant deal, actually, on account of "The Jabberwocky" is not real nonsense. And that's its extravagant appeal.


If you acquire ever interpret the tome or seen the Disney film, you cognize this poem. However let's energize our memories by looking at good the elementary paragraph.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


Far from life nonsense, everyone string is meticulously crafted to dish out the view that it is saying something serious. In Alice's own words, "It seems to fill my attitude with ideas -- apart I don't differentiate genuine what they are."


This is licence what a bully expository paragraph should do. First, contemporaneous an idea, which of plan testament be fuzzy until you returns the moment step, which is to clearly decipher it.


Very innumerable expository texts fail to result this manageable two-step procedure. Instead, they either blend an design well-balanced with details, without clearly separating them. Or they bequeath all the supporting details first, with congenial of a suprise ending: "Hey, here's what all of this de facto means!"


Both approaches are dramatically incorrect.


Not clearly distinguishing clue ideas from details money that the primary ideas shop for irrevocable in the details. Persons are not perfectly positive what they are supposed to retain from the text, so they retain too little.


Saving the material impression for the mark is probably worse. Readers must wade an ocean of details without tolerant their significance, so various will award up before they carry to the end. Those that create fabricate it to the head are challenged to potency back fini the contents to bigger accept the conclusion, which most are unlikely to do.


So once again, the finest reaching to most expository texts is:

1. Clearly territory an idea.

2. Then clearly analyze it.


Does "The Jabberwocky" go after this procedure? Yes, on the contrary in its own inimitable way.


From the near complete bombast of the inaugural paragraph, it passes to near total sensitive in the second paragraph.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The orifice that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"


It continues in this near kind resources throughout the third, fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs. Peerless to conclude with the near total bananas of the head paragraph, which at once somehow seems less nonsensical than it did at the beginning.


We shouldn't stretch this dialogue also far, as Mister Carroll obviously didn't bring about the unit one nondiscriminatory of any expository content - to be perfectly clear. On the other hand of trail this wasn't his intention. Unfortunately, distinct expository writers besides fail to carry off the objective, now "clear" is a weasel word, i.e. it way at variance matters to differential people. What is fine to you may not be sunshiny to me, and vise versa.


The culminating course to resolve this box is to cede "clear" a functional definition. A charitable of directions we can handle when writing a text. And a crack we can manipulate to evaluate the words when we annex finished. And here it is.


Clarity Principle


In classification to be clear, you must end three things:

1. Assert what is of answer importance.

2. De-emphasize what is of secondary importance.

3. Eliminate what is of no importance

In short, CL = EDE


This is not a excelling thought to the disagreement of clarity (nothing is), nevertheless it comes moderately close.


First, you finger the interpretation ideas you hankering to grant and cook confident that they are highlighted (primary importance). Second, you clarify or defend these indispensable ideas with belonging supporting advice (secondary importance). Finally, you eliminate everything else (no importance). This mode rejecting all hash that does not base one or another of the pivotal ideas.


As a result, you arrive at a paragraph that is admirably clear, owing to everything is in its correct place. Your subject is further automatically hearty on the hook to career admirably concise, since you own getting rid of everything of no importance. In a antecedent draft, break of no bearing can capture up as 30 per cent of the text, so by eliminating it you retain reduced the length by 30 per cent.


An Illuminating Anecdote


It is not commonly certified that Lewis Carroll's authentic handle was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. And in appendix to growth a superb storyteller, he was very a first-class logician and mathematician.


I discovered this when I was a mathematics undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). As any of my studies, I had to revenue a congregation in semantic and symbolic logic. Having been acquainted with Alice in Wonderland particular ended the Disney cartoon, I was surprised to examine a reference to it in the order textbook. Then another one. And another one. And another one. The and references I encountered, the curiouser and curiouser I became. I had to study the book.


The point is, Alice in Wonderland is massive with mathematical and logical allusions, if you apperceive where to look. Prof. Dodgson (Carroll) may enjoy included them on purpose, but inured who he was, they might obtain even-handed form their pathway into the profession naturally. In any event, I was intrigued and bent on to treasure trove them.


One day, I was sitting in front of the university waiting for a bus and reading Alice in Wonderland. A embryonic senescent woman walked by. A puzzled locution came over her face when she noticed what I was reading. Front she stared at the book, then at the university, then back at the book. Last of all she walked away, shaking her head. I don't be read what she was thinking, but I am persuaded it wasn't genuine flattering, either for me or the university.


Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Logbook and a marketing memo consultant. He currently teaches a succession and conducts workshops in first-class writing and congenial speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published volume In the "I" of the Storm: the Easy Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) comparable a Learned is available from Book Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).


For as well information, contact:
Philip Yaffe
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405
Email: phil.yaffe@yahoo.com, phil.yaffe@gmail.com