message tactics – #wakeupreader

patter

If you want to keep your reader interested in your argument it helps to think about the tactics and tools you have at your disposal. You actually have a lot. Some of these are syntactical, some more artistic, and some are to do with your message. This post is a reminder that it’s helpful to keep messagetactics in mind when you are writing. They can do a lot, not to simply to strengthen and support what you argue, but also to interest and engage your reader.

We often think about some of these message tactics as ‘evidence’ – they are the ‘stuff’ that we offer in support of our argument. But rather than evidence, I’d like to reframe these, just for a minute, as message tactics.

Humour me. What do I mean by message tactics?

Well, theidea of a message stems from an understanding that the reader is in a…

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Hemingway’s advice to writers

Research Degree Insiders

While I’m writing the book, I’m surrounded by some of my favourite texts about writing. None of them have all the answers, but there are some nuggets I’d love to share with you.

First up, journalist, novelist, and Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Ernest Hemingway.

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Ernest Hemingway is famous for his economical and understated style (hence the Hemingway Editor app which promises to ‘make your writing bold and clear’ by encouraging simple, direct, short sentences). He is also famous for his adventures, and his novels of men ‘his novels of men boxing, bullfighting, hunting giant fish, and battling each other in war‘. So, pretty tough.

And yet, that Nobel Prize recognises his influence on other writers and his insight into men’s minds and hearts–and that included his own. Hemingway is one of the most insightful and encouraging authorities on how to write.

‘I loved to write very…

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# 49 Ahmad Al-Shugairi

من الهامش.. إنتروبي