PART III.

SOME PRACTICAL FEATURES OF COMPOSITION.

INVENTION and EXPRESSION, as treated in Chapters I.XII., are the essentials of prose composition. But there are certain practical features which require special treat

ment.

CHAPTER XIII.

PREPARING A COMPOSITION.

120. THE term Composition may be applied to any piece of writing, whether long or short, whether complicated or simple. Thus any one of the independent paragraphs quoted in Chapter III. is no less a composition than Carlyle's Frederick the Great, a work in several volumes, each volume divided into books, chapters, sections, and paragraphs.

In the present chapter, however, the term Composition is employed in the usual high-school and college sense, to denote a piece of writing which may vary in length from 600 words to 1500 or 2000 words, and which is to embody the knowledge, views, and feelings of a young writer upon a subject within the range of school and college life or study.

Whether the writing be actually called a composition, or an essay, does not matter. Neither does it matter, for

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the present chapter, whether the subject be chosen by the writer or assigned to him by the teacher.

Assuming that the scholar has got his subject and has thought it over in a general way, how shall we direct him to write out his thoughts in a composition?

FORMULATING THE SUBJECT.

121. The first direction is this:

Formulate your subject in a complete and clearly-worded sentence, before you begin to write.

Every subject is elastic: not only may it be treated briefly or at length, but it may also be treated under one or another of numerous aspects. The writer, then, before writing, should first determine the particular aspect. E. g., the subject in general may be:

Camping in the Adirondacks.

The writer is supposed to have passed some weeks in the region.

1. He may narrate the more striking incidents of is trip, from the time he entered the region until he left it. 2. He may give in detail the incidents of a single day in the woods, as a sample of his tent-life in general.

3. He may describe the prominent features of lakes and rivers, woods and mountains.

4. He may mention the peculiarities of fishing or of hunting in the Adirondacks.

5. He may discuss the gain to body and mind from such a trip. Or, the social features of such close companionship.

From the above, and other similar aspects which may suggest themselves, the writer should select that one which suits him best, as the one upon which to concentrate his thinking powers, and should formulate it in a sentence. Thus:

In this composition I am going to describe the lakes, woods, etc. in the Adirondacks.

A sentence of this sort, written down, will be the writer's guide throughout his work, will be his working formula. He need not insert it in his composition; still less need he take it for the title. But the sentence, the formula, he should have constantly before his eye and his mind.

In a composition of more than usual length, say of 2500 or 3000 words, the writer might combine all, or most, of the above-mentioned aspects. He should, in that case, draw up his formula more carefully, somewhat in this fashion:

I am going to narrate a three weeks' trip in the Adirondacks, telling where I went, describing some of the scenery, giving in detail the incidents of one day as a sample of the life, and stating facts enough to justify the conclusion that the trip has done me good.

Here the description would be subordinate to the narrative, and the two together would lead up to the conclusion. Instead of narration or description, the subject may be in exposition; e. g.:

The University Extension Movement.

Here the writer may treat :

1. The impulse to the movement, and its history: when and where it started, who started it; what methods were first employed; what changes introduced in methods and subjects.

2. Difference between England and the United States; advantages of England.

3. Actual operation of the movement in the city in which the writer resides.

4. Character of the persons engaged in giving and receiving instruction.

5. Possible effect of the movement upon high schools and colleges.

In a long composition these several aspects might be combined. Thus:

I shall mention what gave rise to the movement, the persons who began it, their methods, the changes introduced, the spread of the movement to America, and the present outlook here.

It is quite possible that the above formulation might not suit any one writer. It is not offered here as a model, but only as a suggestion Nevertheless some such formula should be clearly present to the writer before he begins to write.

WORKING Plan.

122. The directions for a working plan are these:

1. Having formulated your subject, think out the details or items, jotting down each one on a separate slip of paper. This jotting down need not always be in the form of a complete sentence; usually a catch-word will be enough; e. g., for a composition upon the Adirondacks: stream; heavy rains.

Difficult crossing

Thick moss on trees at

Mysterious noises in woods after sunset.

Big catch of trout, Saturday.

M. [the guide] making coffee and roasting potatoes.

For a composition upon University Extension:

Heard

and costumes.

lecture on ancient Greek life; lantern slides, buildings

2. Having thus jotted down recollections and ideas, read over the slips and sort them into groups, putting into one group those slips which naturally go together. Each group will constitute a paragraph, the separate jottings being the items of the paragraph; see § 7, 3. Then formulate the sub

stance of each paragraph into a sentence, like the formula for the whole composition, § 121.

3. After all the paragraphs are formulated, prepare a Working Plan, by writing at the top of a sheet of paper the formula of the whole composition, and below, in succession, the formula of each paragraph, in the order which -after careful reflection-seems best.

Remember that in Narration and Description the formula of a paragraph is not necessarily the Topic-Sentence. Not even in Exposition is it always such a sentence. But in Exposition it would at least suggest one. (See §§ 11, 12.)

This process of formulating the subject, then jotting down numerous items, grouping these into paragraphs, formulating each paragraph, and lastly drawing up a working plan, is necessarily slow. Certainly the first attempt will cost time and effort. But with every fresh composition the task will become lighter, until-after the fourth or fifth composition-the young writer perceives that he is acquiring a certain skill in formulating and outlining.

But, whether slow or rapid, the process is the only sure means of curing the chronic fault of school and college composition, the lack of unity, order, coherence, and proportion. Every teacher of English knows that the ordinary composition, even if correct in grammar and diction, is rambling. The writer does not start off promptly, he is diffuse where he ought to be concise, or meagre where he ought to amplify, he omits necessary statements, and ends with a limp. All these evils can be traced back to one source: the writer has undertaken to compose without a plan. The cure, therefore, will consist in training him to form a plan. One feature, especially, of good writing can be brought out with the aid of a good working plan, namely, Proportion. The writer, we may assume, is about to describe the lakes, rivers, woods, and mountains of the Adirondacks, in a composition of 600 words. Shall he treat

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