By Kristin Huggins
Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers by Jacques Barzun is a beautifully written ballad for writers and English educators everywhere. It manages to present advanced concepts of the English language in a way that feels lyrical throughout and wholly approachable to the wayward interdisciplinary writer.
It should be noted that I am not an English major. Despite English being my native language, I was never privy to the complex workings of the language until entering my doctorate program, which thrust me into academic writing like a child thrown into a lake who cannot swim. You figure it out quickly, or you drown.
Regardless of my ignorance of partitives and modifiers (which sounded like armor upgrades from a certain mass multi-player online role-playing game), Barzun managed to pull me through to the end of his text relatively unscathed. His unique writing voice throughout the text feels shaded with tones of creative writing, which made digesting the meaning of “malaprop” palatable rather than pedantic.
Four main themes emerged while reading Barzun’s work:
- Writing extends beyond the act of putting words on a page.
- Writers must discover the appropriate connections for each phrase.
- Meaning and Intent are the gatekeepers for good writing.
- Active revision requires self-reflection through guided questions.
Writing Extends Beyond the Act of Putting Words to the Page
It is not enough to simply “pay attention to words only when you face the task of writing-that is like playing the violin only on the night of the concert. You must attend to words when you read, when you speak, when others speak” (p. 9).
In this, Barzun challenges the reader to find natural instances of communication, which is the broader landscape of rhetoric, encompassing the spoken word and collaborative experiences of exchanged communication.
I found this to be reminiscent of the recent piece I worked on about how reading and writing feed into one another to enhance our understanding of rhetoric.
If one simply considers the act of writing only when sitting in front of a blank word document, they are working with a mere portion of potential compared to the observations and discoveries made when reading articles within one’s field, when discussing various theories with one’s professor or dissertation chair, or when bouncing ideas off of colleagues when one struggles with a particularly difficult study result that contrasts with pre-existing assumptions. These are all examples of where acts of non-writing can lead to stronger, clearer acts of writing.
Writers Must Discover the Appropriate Connections for Each Phrase.
In II. Linking: What to Put Next, Barzun dispels the idea that concise academic writing is built from simple sentence structures. He posits that we should not think of a complete, well-written sentence as “a house made of building blocks. Rather, it resembles a skeleton, in which the joints, the balance, the fit of the parts and their inner solidity combine to make up a well-knit frame” (p. 58).
This mental image suggests that the process of writing is much more nuanced than a simple subject-verb agreement. Each piece of the writing skeleton may operate in a singularly unique way apart from other pieces, despite their similarity in appearance or meaning. Barzun attempts to alleviate potential tears and frustration for early-career writers by revealing the hidden complexities of the English language that are more nuanced than one may suspect.
Meaning and Intent are the Gatekeepers to Good Writing
Perhaps Barzun’s most impactful chapter for the graduate student readership is IV. Meaning: What Do I Want To Say? Ask any doctoral student who is neck-deep in formulating their research prospectus: clear communication of meaning through a well-crafted thesis statement is doggedly difficult on a good day.
Half of my time as a graduate writing consultant is spent asking clients what they want to communicate with their audience, then working backwards to ensure that their writing matches their intent. It’s not an easy task. Barzun (and many of my doctoral professors) argue that the task of writing is the act of critical thought frozen at a singular moment of conception. Writers rarely begin a clearly defined argument, but rather come to their point after laborious hours of drafting, brainstorming, revising, and rewriting.
I liken this process to the act of sculpting statues from marble. Michelangelo spoke on this, saying that “the sculpture is already complete in the marble block, before I start my work. It’s already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Is this not akin to the act of writing?
Guiding Questions for the Active Reviser
According to Barzun, revision is the difference between good writing and inspirational writing. While the act of writing in itself can serve the purpose of sorting one’s thoughts or arguments to a degree, revision is where these concepts are polished to perfection until they are blinding.
He provides readers with a series of questions meant to guide writers through the act of revision. For the sake of brevity, I’ve selected the five most impactful questions (in my humble opinion). The rest can be reviewed at leisure in VI. Revision: What Have I Actually Said (pp. 247-248).
- Is the movement of my prose satisfactory to the mind AND the ear?
- Have I indulged myself in language that is toplofty, patronizing, technical for mere showing off? Or have I been simple and direct throughout… always sincere and respectful of the reader?
- Can I say, looking at single words, that every one of them means and connotes what I think it does? Or has my diction been spoiled by threadbare clichés, pseudo-technical jargon, unthinking metaphors, and that excess of abstract words known as the noun plague?
- Has my theme(s) been set down fully through a series of ideas presented in consecutive order? Or have I again relied on my understanding of the subject to bridge over gaps in thought and to disentangle snarls in description?
- In the layout of my paper, have I devoted space and furnished detail in proportion to the importance of each topic? Or have I concentrated on what interested me and skimped on the rest, whether owing to a poor outline or the neglect of a good one?
These questions can be answered with a simple “Yes” or “No”, but Barzun challenges the reader to look beyond these responses and dig deeper into the root issues presented by each. For example, I can assert that the order of topics presented in my literature review is ideal for reader comprehension, and yet still discover that I have neglected an in-depth review of specific processes or terminologies based on my lack of comfort or content knowledge in that particular sub-area of expertise.
Be sure to add Simple and Direct to your library of writing aides! To read more and purchase this text, please visit Amazon via this link https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Direct-Jacques-Barzun/dp/0060937238/ref=asc_df_0060937238/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312126061109&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13871129474782864257&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027095&hvtargid=pla-297768715338&psc=1