Sense of Structure, The: Writing from the Reader's Perspective, 1st edition

Published by Pearson (8 January 2004) © 2005

  • George Gopen
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Title overview

This composition text provides an insightful guide to writing clearly and effectively.

Reflecting on the author's decades of experience as an international writing consultant, writer, and instructor, The Sense of Structure teaches writing from the perspective of readers. This text demonstrates that readers have relatively fixed expectations of where certain words or grammatical constructions will appear in a unit of discourse. By bringing these intuitive reading processes to conscious thought, this text provides students with tools for understanding how readers interact with the structure of writing, from punctuation marks to sentences to paragraphs, and how meaning and purpose are communicated through structure.

Table of contents

  • 1. The Complexity of the English Sentence
  • 2. A Structural Anatomy of the English Sentence
  • 3. Weights and Balances; Motions and Connections
  • 4. “Whose Paragraph Is It, Anyway?”: The Shapes of the English Paragraph
  • 5. “Write the Way You Speak” and Other Bad Pieces of Advice
  • 6. Mark My Words: A Reader's Perspective on the World of Punctuation

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