Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read—and to write. Dispelling the myth that you cannot get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose, Sword shows how much journal editors and readers welcome work that avoids excessive jargon and abstraction. Sword’s analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields documents a startling gap between how academics typically describe good writing and the turgid prose they regularly produce. Stylish Academic Writing showcases a range of scholars from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences who write with vividness and panache. Individual chapters take up specific elements of style, such as titles and headings, chapter openings, and structure, and close with examples of transferable techniques that any writer can master.
From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed 100 academics worldwide about their writing background and practices and shows how they find or create the conditions to get their writing done.
This book offers an easy-to-follow set of writing principles. For example, use active verbs whenever possible, favour concrete language over vague abstractions, avoid long strings of prepositional phrases, employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence and reduce your dependence on the "waste words": 'it', 'this', 'that' and 'there'. The author also shows these rules in action through examples from famous authors such as Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. The book includes a test to help you assess your own writing and get advice on problem areas.
Spiritualism is often dismissed by literary critics and historians as merely a Victorian fad. Helen Sword demonstrates that it continued to flourish well into the twentieth century and seeks to explain why. Literary modernism, she maintains, is replete with ghosts and spirits. In Ghostwriting Modernism she explores spiritualism's striking persistence and what she calls "the vexed relationship between mediumistic discourse and modernist literary aesthetics."Sword begins with a brief historical review of popular spiritualism's roots in nineteenth-century literary culture. In subsequent chapters, she discusses the forms of mediumship most closely allied with writing, the forms of writing most closely allied with mediumship, and the thematic and aesthetic alliances between popular spiritualism and modernist literature. Finally, she accounts for the recent proliferation of a spiritualist-influenced vocabulary (ghostliness, hauntings, the uncanny) in the works of historians, sociologists, philosophers, and especially literary critics and theorists.Documenting the hitherto unexplored relationship between spiritualism and modern authors (some credulous, some skeptical), Sword offers compelling readings of works by James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, H.D., James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, and Ted Hughes. Even as modernists mock spiritualism's ludicrous lingo and deride its metaphysical excesses, she finds, they are intrigued and attracted by its ontological shiftiness, its blurring of the traditional divide between high culture and low culture, and its self-serving tendency to favor form over content (medium, so to speak, over message). Like modernism itself, Sword asserts, spiritualism embraces rather than eschews paradox, providing an ideological space where conservative beliefs can coexist with radical, even iconoclastic, thought and action.
An essential guide to cultivating joy in your professional and personal writing Writing should be a pleasurable challenge, not a painful chore. Writing with Pleasure empowers academic, professional, and creative writers to reframe their negative emotions about writing and reclaim their positive ones. By learning how to cast light on the shadows, you will soon find yourself bringing passion and pleasure to everything you write. Acclaimed international writing expert Helen Sword invites you to step into your “WriteSPACE”—a space of pleasurable writing that is socially balanced, physically engaged, aesthetically nourishing, creatively challenging, and emotionally uplifting. Sword weaves together cutting-edge findings in the sciences and social sciences with compelling narratives gathered from nearly six hundred faculty members and graduate students from across the disciplines and around the world. She provides research-based principles, hands-on strategies, and creative “pleasure prompts” designed to help you ramp up your productivity and enhance the personal rewards of your writing practice. Whether you’re writing a scholarly article, an administrative email, or a love letter, this book will inspire you to find delight in even the most mundane writing tasks and a richer, deeper pleasure in those you already enjoy. Exuberantly illustrated by prizewinning graphic memoirist Selina Tusitala Marsh, Writing with Pleasure is an indispensable resource for academics, students, professionals, and anyone for whom writing has come to feel like a burden rather than a joy.
From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed 100 academics worldwide about their writing background and practices and shows how they find or create the conditions to get their writing done.
Helen Sword teaches writers of all kinds - students to teachers, lawyers to librarians - how to transform flabby sentences into active, energetic prose. The book and the website enable writers to diagnose their writing for flab - passives and prepositions, weak verbs and waste words - and energise their work by stripping away unnecessary padding"--Publisher information.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
The remarkable essays in this volume were written for the expressed purpose of helping both the newcomer to spiritual thinking as well as the skilled practitioner to see the everyday objects - from the wind and ships to deserts and lakes - and subjects - from dogs and ravens to dolphins and whales - surrounding us as concrete embodiments and living symbols of the fundamental spiritual Essence from which everything has evolved. These universal symbols are not just accidental mental constructs but are living realities that not only point to spiritual dimensions far beyond themselves but profoundly embody those spiritual realities. Learning to see the world around us afresh in the light of its spiritual dimension reorients us to taking up again the age-old task of treading the Path and aids us in activating our higher spiritual capacities which, when awakened, shed the pristine light of universal Theosophy on the path of spiritual self-regeneration in the service of humanity. The 28 wide-ranging articles in this volume span a wide spectrum of human thought: from the Tetraktys to the Cross, from the Altar to the Mirror, from the Pentagram to the Dodecahedron, from the Dog to the Dwarf, from the Heart to the Fool; indeed, from Shamballa to Paradise. These essays reveal the fundamental religious, philosophical, and scientific aspects to the most mundane and most refined realities of our common, everyday world. Both the serious reflection upon and casual reading of these essays is a joyous expedition through the all-too-common truncated perceptions we have of our world to a higher level of awareness of the myriad ways in which the life of the universal Spirit is made manifest.
The circus comes to town, full of conjurors, clowns, tightrope walkers and trapeze artists. But dark secrets lurk beneath the sawdust and spangles - secrets that are part of a dangerous mystery that might prove impossible to solve! The fifth book in this gripping new adventure series!
The fascinating story of the social evolution of William the Conqueror’s invaders and the generations that followed: “A great book.” —Medieval Sword School The 1066 Norman Bruisers conjures up the vanished world of England in the late Middle Ages and casts light on one of the strangest quirks in the nation’s history: how a bunch of European thugs became the quintessentially English gentry. In 1066, go-getting young immigrant Osbern Fitz Tezzo crossed the Channel in William the Conqueror’s army. Little did he know that it would take five years to vanquish the English, years in which the Normans suffered almost as much as the people they had set out to subdue. For the English, the Norman Conquest was an unmitigated disaster, killing thousands by the sword or starvation. But for Osbern and his compatriots, it brought territory and treasure—and a generational evolution they could never have imagined. This book follows successive descendants as they fought for monarchs and magnates, oversaw royal garrisons, traveled abroad as agents of the crown, and helped to administer the laws of the land. When they weren’t strutting across the stage of northwestern England, mingling with great men and participating in great events, they engaged in feuds, embarked on illicit love affairs, and exerted their influence in the small corner of the country they had made their own. The 1066 Norman Bruisers represents both a fascinating family history and a riveting journey through post-Conquest England.
Compelling, convincing, and—ultimately—unforgettable."—Sharon Kay Penman, Bestselling Author of Devil's Blood Who was THE MAN Who became THE LEGEND We know as KING ARTHUR? "You are the Pendragon, rightful Lord of Dumnonia and the Summer Land; Lord of less Britain. By all that is right, you ought be seated where Vortigern sits...You ought to be King." Here lies the truth of the Lord of the Summer Land. This is the tale of Arthur flesh and bone. Of the shaping of the man, both courageous and flawed, into the celebrated ruler who inspired armies, who captured Gwenhyfar's heart, and who emerged as the hero of the Dark Ages and the most enduring hero of all time. This is the unexpected story of the making of a king — the legend who united all of Britain. Praise for The Kingmaking: "If only all historical fiction could be this good."—Historical Novels Review "Helen Hollick has it all. She tells a great story..."— Bernard Cornwell "Hollick's interpretation is bold, affecting, and well worth fighting to defend." —Publishers Weekly
This volume focuses on the story of Judith as presented by composers, librettists and playwrights over four centuries. Helen Leneman analyzes numerous examples of music, librettos and the librettists' views of Judith – strongly influenced by societal attitudes of their time – and how these works in turn suggest unexpected ways of understanding biblical women and their stories. Music adds nuances, colors and emotions, becoming a subtext that suggests character and emotions. Leneman presents in-depth analyses of the librettos and music of 16 operas and oratorios based on the book of Judith that span 300 years (1694-1984), in addition to two influential plays that inspired several librettos in the nineteenth century. Exploring works by such varied composers as Vivaldi, Mozart, Parry, Honegger, Serov, Chadwick and von Reznicek, Leneman reveals the ways in which each adaptation expands, distils or reinterprets Judith's character and story. In this first ever extensive study of musical settings of the Book of Judith, Leneman enables the biblical heroine to transcend her source.
Learn more about this popular saint and her call to fight for her country. Many have been introduced to the story of Saint Joan of Arc through big screen movies and TV. This biography follows her life, illustrating how she heard God's call to fight for her country.
A myth-busting, jaw-dropping, fun-filled tour through the science of your favorite fantastical world. Award-winning comedian and popular-science writer Helen Keen uncovers the astounding science behind the mystical, blood-soaked world of Game of Thrones, answering questions like: Is it possible to crush a person's head with your bare hands? What really happens when royal families interbreed? Does Cersei have Borderline Personality Disorder? What curious medical disorder does Hodor suffer from? And more. Join Keen as she investigates wildfire, ice walls, face transplants, and every wild feature of Westeros and beyond, revealing a magical world that may be closer to our own than we think. The Science of Game of Thrones is the ultimate guide to the epic series as well as the perfect gift for science-lovers and fans. So pour yourself a bowl of brown, climb on your beast of burden, and prepare yourself to see the Seven Kingdoms as you have never seen them before.
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