by Philip Yaffe


The absolute, unalterable, incontestable hallmark of a worthy expository (non-fiction) topic 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 duration the prime criterion, what potential accord could there between the absolute craziness of Lewis Carroll's poem "The Jabberwocky" (in Alice complete the Looking Glass) and ace expository writing? A good deal, actually, for "The Jabberwocky" is not certain nonsense. And that's its extravagant appeal.


If you hog ever announce the manual or seen the Disney film, you be informed this poem. On the other hand let's energize our memories by looking at good the early 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 career nonsense, everyone string is meticulously crafted to deliver the opinion that it is saying something serious. In Alice's own words, "It seems to fill my intellect with ideas -- apart I don't differentiate right what they are."


This is fair what a congenial expository content should do. First, in duration an idea, which of progression testament be fuzzy until you yield the moment step, which is to clearly define it.


Very copious expository texts fail to chase this mild two-step procedure. Instead, they either combine an concept cool with details, without clearly separating them. Or they dish out all the supporting details first, with bleeding heart of a suprise ending: "Hey, here's what all of this in reality means!"


Both approaches are dramatically incorrect.


Not clearly distinguishing crucial ideas from details money that the gloss ideas bias gone in the details. Citizens are not in truth trustworthy what they are supposed to retain from the text, so they retain as well little.


Saving the fundamental conception for the butt end is probably worse. Readers must wade washed-up an ocean of details without kind their significance, so indefinite will convey up before they acquire to the end. Those that accomplish constitute it to the edge are challenged to energy back finished the paragraph to higher quality find out the conclusion, which most are unlikely to do.


So once again, the blessing nearing to most expository texts is:

1. Clearly polity an idea.

2. Then clearly construe it.


Does "The Jabberwocky" supersede this procedure? Yes, nevertheless in its own inimitable way.


From the near complete flightiness of the ahead paragraph, it passes to near total generous in the second paragraph.

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


It continues in this near compassionate method throughout the third, fourth, fifth and sixth paragraphs. Exclusive to conclude with the near total drivel of the cardinal paragraph, which like now somehow seems less nonsensical than it did at the beginning.


We shouldn't stretch this conversation extremely far, since Mister Carroll obviously didn't deliver the cipher one cool of any expository subject - to be perfectly clear. On the contrary of trail this wasn't his intention. Unfortunately, alive with expository writers extremely fail to actualize the objective, as "clear" is a weasel word, i.e. it mode clashing matters to contrasting people. What is clarion to you may not be halcyon to me, and vise versa.


The finest hook to resolve this complication is to bequeath "clear" a functional definition. A compassionate of directions we can practice when writing a text. And a evaluation we can manipulate to evaluate the passage when we keep finished. And here it is.


Clarity Principle


In computation to be clear, you must bring about three things:

1. Enunciate what is of clue importance.

2. De-emphasize what is of secondary importance.

3. Eliminate what is of no importance

In short, CL = EDE


This is not a flawless concept to the doubt of clarity (nothing is), however it comes moderately close.


First, you diagnosticate the leading ideas you longing to forward and create decided that they are highlighted (primary importance). Second, you decipher or defend these interpretation ideas with select supporting enlightenment (secondary importance). Finally, you eliminate everything else (no importance). This funds rejecting all dirt that does not relieve one or bounteous of the chief ideas.


As a result, you arrive at a subject that is admirably clear, in that everything is in its correct place. Your words is besides automatically beefy on the plan to lifetime admirably concise, whereas you acquire getting rid of everything of no importance. In a basic draft, advice of no accent can share up as 30 per cent of the text, so by eliminating it you keep reduced the length by 30 per cent.


An Illuminating Anecdote


It is not commonly confessed that Lewis Carroll's existent denomination was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. And in appendix to existence a superb storyteller, he was further a first-class logician and mathematician.


I discovered this when I was a mathematics undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). As division of my studies, I had to receive a organization in semantic and symbolic logic. Having been acquainted with Alice in Wonderland one shot wound up the Disney cartoon, I was surprised to detect a reference to it in the method textbook. Then another one. And another one. And another one. The amassed references I encountered, the curiouser and curiouser I became. I had to scan the book.


The point is, Alice in Wonderland is substantial with mathematical and logical allusions, if you comprehend where to look. Prof. Dodgson (Carroll) may admit included them on purpose, but disposed who he was, they might obtain honorable initiate their fashion into the duty naturally. In any event, I was intrigued and dogged to asset them.


One day, I was sitting in front of the university waiting for a bus and reading Alice in Wonderland. A diminutive experienced gentlewoman walked by. A puzzled word came over her face when she noticed what I was reading. Inceptive 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 sense what she was thinking, but I am sure it wasn't identical flattering, either for me or the university.


Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Annual and a marketing memo consultant. He currently teaches a direction and conducts workshops in positive writing and capital speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published jotter In the "I" of the Storm: the Facile Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) coextensive a Learned is available from Autobiography Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).


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