Month: September 2009

Here is some folk wisdom for writers and speakers: First I tells ‘em what I,m going to tell ‘ em, then I tells ‘em, then I tells ‘em what I’ve…

Here is a notice that appeared on various London buses in early 1988. The information it tries to convey will not go into a single, simple message. It has many…

Some writers lose patience with methodical planning. Either they cannot generate enough ideas in the first place, or else they simply cannot find any pattern among the ideas they have,…

For many people who ‘live by the word’ – Public officials, PR spokesmen, advertisers, campaigners, and the like – euphemism is a favourite weapon. Advertising copywriters, for instance, scared of…

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Consider the following two versions of a text the conclusion of a short story written for a training course. The narrator recalls an incident from his childhood. He and his…

Here are extracts from two editorial articles in The Times of London. They appeared on the same day – 82 years apart. Note how the style of writing has changed.…

Rearrange the following seven sentences into the well-structured paragraph they originally formed. (Just to establish the context: in the book from which the paragraph is taken, the preceding paragraph had…