Excerpt from Editorials and Editorial-Writing The newspaper, it is widely believed, is merely a billboard on which the news of the day is displayed in flaring type. The figure is inadequate. In spite of many attempts, the newspaper never has succeeded in being simply a common carrier of news. The news itself is not a commodity, like soap, to be packed in cartons and standardized for sale. It is a matter of selection. Stevenson said he could make an Iliad of a daily newspaper by blotting. Extensive blotting already has been done in the production of the news. So much depends on the point of view. To be sure, a vast amount of news in standardized form is furnished by the press associations. But the individual side of the newspaper, the thing that distinguishes one newspaper from another in its presentation of news, determined by the standpoint. It may be the standpoint of the conservative, the progressive, the radical, the financier, the sporting man, the worker, the intellectual. On this depends the value and proportion accorded what we call news. In the second place publishers long ago discovered that their customers desired more than the tale of the day. They desired news of the stores, advertising, pictures, entertaining reading of every sort. And they desired interpretation and comment. A man from Mars might be surprised to find a carrier of news offering advice to its readers. Sometimes it does seem presumption to the editorial writer himself. The justification must be on the ground of noblesse oblige. Questions are constantly arising in which all of us are vitally interested. Primarily, we form our opinions on the basis of the news. James Parton once argued with Horace Greeley that the editorial is merely a man speaking to men, while news is Providence speaking to men. He was right. Nevertheless, under ordinary circumstances, we haven't time to investigate, and we life to form our opinions in the light of intelligent discussion. We may not agree with the editorial. But it formulates the arguments and helps us to see more clearly the two sides. The writer of the editorial may not be an expert or a genius. At least he is in the habit of thinking about public questions. He is presumed to have some gift for public affairs. He has more time to investigate and more sources of information than the average busy person. A daily medium meeting these requirements is not a billboard. It is essentially a personality. The headlines, the general arrangement of material, are merely an outward sign. They constitute the habiliments in which the personality is clothed. The dress may be flashy, loud, vulgar. It may be sedate, or lively, but in good taste. In general, the dress is an index to the personality behind it. In the long run, people take this newspaper rather than that because they prefer on the whole one type of personality rather than the other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

How to transform a thesis into a publishable work that can engage audiences beyond the academic committee. When a dissertation crosses my desk, I usually want to grab it by its metaphorical lapels and give it a good shake. “You know something!” I would say if it could hear me. “Now tell it to us in language we can understand!” Since its publication in 2005, From Dissertation to Book has helped thousands of young academic authors get their books beyond the thesis committee and into the hands of interested publishers and general readers. Now revised and updated to reflect the evolution of scholarly publishing, this edition includes a new chapter arguing that the future of academic writing is in the hands of young scholars who must create work that meets the broader expectations of readers rather than the narrow requirements of academic committees. At the heart of From Dissertation to Book is the idea that revising the dissertation is fundamentally a process of shifting its focus from the concerns of a narrow audience—a committee or advisors—to those of a broader scholarly audience that wants writing to be both informative and engaging. William Germano offers clear guidance on how to do this, with advice on such topics as rethinking the table of contents, taming runaway footnotes, shaping chapter length, and confronting the limitations of jargon, alongside helpful timetables for light or heavy revision. Germano draws on his years of experience in both academia and publishing to show writers how to turn a dissertation into a book that an audience will actually enjoy, whether reading on a page or a screen. He also acknowledges that not all dissertations can or even should become books and explores other, often overlooked, options, such as turning them into journal articles or chapters in an edited work. With clear directions, engaging examples, and an eye for the idiosyncrasies of academic writing, he reveals to recent PhDs the secrets of careful and thoughtful revision—a skill that will be truly invaluable as they add “author” to their curriculum vitae.

This book provides you with all the tools you need to write an excellent academic article and get it published.

Everyone talks about style, but no one explains it. The authors of this book do; and in doing so, they provoke the reader to consider style, not as an elegant accessory of effective prose, but as its very heart. At a time when writing skills have virtually disappeared, what can be done? If only people learned the principles of verbal correctness, the essential rules, wouldn't good prose simply fall into place? Thomas and Turner say no. Attending to rules of grammar, sense, and sentence structure will no more lead to effective prose than knowing the mechanics of a golf swing will lead to a hole-in-one. Furthermore, ten-step programs to better writing exacerbate the problem by failing to recognize, as Thomas and Turner point out, that there are many styles with different standards. In the first half of Clear and Simple, the authors introduce a range of styles--reflexive, practical, plain, contemplative, romantic, prophetic, and others--contrasting them to classic style. Its principles are simple: The writer adopts the pose that the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation, the reader is an intellectual equal, and the occasion is informal. Classic style is at home in everything from business memos to personal letters, from magazine articles to university writing. The second half of the book is a tour of examples--the exquisite and the execrable--showing what has worked and what hasn't. Classic prose is found everywhere: from Thomas Jefferson to Junichirō Tanizaki, from Mark Twain to the observations of an undergraduate. Here are many fine performances in classic style, each clear and simple as the truth. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.