A fter a lifetime of writing and editing prose, Jacques Barzun has set down his view of the best ways to improve one's style. His discussions of diction, syntax, tone, meaning, composition, and revision guide the reader through the technique of making the written word clear and agreeable to read. Exercises, model passages both literary and casual, and hundreds of amusing examples of usage gone wrong show how to choose the right path to self-expression in forceful and distinctive words.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Rare is the book that causes one to consider--ponder? appraise? examine? inspect? contemplate?--one's every word. Simple & Direct, a classic text on the craft of writing by the educator Jacques Barzun, does so--with style. His object, says Barzun, is "to resensitize the mind to words." Do not use a word unless you know both its meaning and its connotations, its "quality" and its "atmosphere," and the ways in which it joins with other words. Barzun is an exacting taskmaster, railing against abstractions, "fancy" wordings, contemporary slang (which "prey[s] upon the vocabulary rather than nourish[es] it"), misprints ("it is rudeness to let them appear"), and the like. He bemoans what he sees as "a fury at work in the people to make war on hyphens," and he loathes those new words, such as condominium, that have been "cobbled together out of shavings and leftovers."
Still, no stodgy codger he. Barzun merely asks that you "have a point and make it by means of the best word." If that means splitting an infinitive or substituting a "which" for a "that," so be it. Just be sure that the decision to do so is conscious and informed. Once you've found the right word, you can move on to writing sentences and then leaning them against one another until they form paragraphs. Only when you've gotten it all down, says Barzun, should you allow yourself the pleasure of revision. "Unlike the sculptor," he says, "the writer can start carving and enjoying himself only after he has dug the marble out of his own head." --Jane Steinberg --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
About the Author
Born in France in 1907, Jacques Barzun came to the United States in 1920. After graduating from Columbia College, he joined the faculty of the university, becoming Seth Low Professor of History and, for a decade, Dean of Faculties and Provost. The author of some thirty books, including the New York Times bestseller From Dawn to Decadence, he received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was twice president. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I taught newswriting as an adjunct in the journalism department of a state university for a couple of years, and Barzun's "Simple and Direct" was on a list of books and essays I strongly recommended to all my students.
I used to work as a radio news and documentary producer and news director and I found Barzun's prescriptions on prose style a reliable guide for editng my own work and others as well.
Barzun's approach can be a bit irritating at first because he tends to be fairly prissy about style, but if you can get past that, you begin to perceive the prissiness as a tight focus on precision of the type that is lacking in much modern prose writing.
His main rule is one I paraphrased at the first meeting of every newswriting class...that there are only two reasons for producing bad writing; either you don't know what you're writing about, or you don't know how to write about it.
I lost my copy of Barzun years ago. I think one of my students walked off with it. If so, I hope he or she is using it. I'm glad to know it's still available.
I used to work as a radio news and documentary producer and news director and I found Barzun's prescriptions on prose style a reliable guide for editng my own work and others as well.
Barzun's approach can be a bit irritating at first because he tends to be fairly prissy about style, but if you can get past that, you begin to perceive the prissiness as a tight focus on precision of the type that is lacking in much modern prose writing.
His main rule is one I paraphrased at the first meeting of every newswriting class...that there are only two reasons for producing bad writing; either you don't know what you're writing about, or you don't know how to write about it.
I lost my copy of Barzun years ago. I think one of my students walked off with it. If so, I hope he or she is using it. I'm glad to know it's still available.
34 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Barzun has written one of the best guides to prose composition, one to be set on the shelf with Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" and Graves & Hodge's "Reader Over Your Shoulder" and consulted often. All three of these books adhere to the Strict Taskmaster method and demand that the writer PAY ATTENTION to what he (or she) is doing. Prissy? Perhaps. Overbearing? At times. But such discipline is the first essential step towards becoming a real writer.
Only after one has internalized the Taskmasters and made their advice an ingrained habit can one then go on to profit from such excellent books as Joseph Williams's "Style," Thomas Kane's "Oxford Essential Guide to Writing," and Arthur Quinn's "Figures of Speech".
57 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If one desires to mould one's prose around the lumpy and shifting shapes thrown up by statistical sampling -- in other words, according to the latest results of the human birdwatchers known as linguistics professors -- then don't read this book. But if you seek concision and character for your writing, and if you don't mind taking the advice of a very great though very old prose stylist, then read, and profit. It is short the fifth star only in order to save something for his "House of Intellect", "Berlioz" and "Science: The Glorious Entertainment".
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Clear
Point: Write clearly. Read what you have written. Rewrite. Simple and Direct provides a critique of the lazy writer and a challenge to those who seek to rise above the average. Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Grotzke
If you know basic writing principles, this book is not for you.
This book was extremely disappointing. Barzun suggests some writing essentials that I (and most well-educated people, I would assume) learned when I was pretty young. Read more
Published 12 months ago by SDB
an assault on stupid writing
"Simple & Direct" had a major influence on my becoming a technical writer. It is an attack on incorrect word usage and just-plain-stupid writing. Read more
Published on July 25, 2009 by William Sommerwerck
Writing to be understood
"Simple and Direct" has a well deserved reputation for anyone wanting to improve their writing skills. Read more
Published on May 19, 2007 by C. G. Bradshaw
Not a casual writing aid; good only if you are prepared to seriously...
A couple of months ago I saw a reference to this book, which aims to improve one's writing style.
After reading a couple of reviews, and seeing that it had gone through... Read more
After reading a couple of reviews, and seeing that it had gone through... Read more
Published on November 18, 2006 by T. Faranda
An Excellent Guide
I read this book - twice. I am not an academic; I am a writer, and I find book to be not only useful but entertaining (as are most of Barzun's writings). Read more
Published on May 22, 2000 by W. A. Bussey
Neither Simple Nor Direct
This book is one of the worst books on English composition and writing I have ever read. Barzun's ideas on prose are certainly not consistent with modern linguistic research, and... Read more
Published on September 17, 1999
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You want to be a writer, or let us rather say: you want to write. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
traffic light shone, noun plague, man dialed Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Henry James, Mark Twain, United States New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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This book cites 27
books:
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14
books
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- From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Lyrical Ballads (First Editions) by William Wordsworth on page 243
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classic) by Mark Twain on page 86
- The Importance Of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde on page 98
- Write It Right (Principal Works of Ambrose Gwinett Bierce) by Ambrose Bierce in Front Matter
See all 27 books this book cites
- Creative Writing for People Who Can't Not Write by Kathryn Lindskoog on page 52, page 55, and Back Matter
- Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others? by Edwin L. Battistella in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- What in the Word? Wordplay, Word Lore, and Answers to Your Peskiest Questions about Language (Harvest Original) by Charles Harrington Elster on page 174, and Back Matter
- Getting the Words Right: 39 Ways to Improve Your Writing by Theodore Cheney on page 242
- Write Your Way to a Higher Gpa: How to Dramatically Boost Your GPA Simply by Sharpening Your Writing Skills by Randall S. Hansen on page 142
See all 14 books citing this book
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