A prolific painter of portraits before and after the French Revolution ...

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chapter
Explaining
ou have decided to quit your present job, so you write a note to your boss
giving thirty days’ notice. During your last few weeks at work, your
boss asks you to write a three-page job description to help orient the
person who will replace you. The job description should include a list of your current
duties as well as advice to your replacement on how to execute them most efficiently.
To write the description, you record your daily activities, look back through
your calendar, comb through your records, and brainstorm a list of everything you
do. As you write up the description, you include specific examples and illustrations
of your typical responsibilities.
s a gymnast and dancer, you gradually become obsessed with losing
weight. You start skipping meals, purging the little food you do eat,
and lying about your eating habits to your parents. Before long, you
weigh less than seventy pounds, and your physician diagnoses your condition:
anorexia nervosa. With advice from your physician and counseling from a psychologist,
you gradually begin to control your disorder. To explain to others what
anorexia is, how it is caused, and what its effects
are, you write an essay in which you explain your
ordeal, alerting other readers to the potential
dangers of uncontrolled dieting.
‘‘
Become aware of
the two-sided nature
of your mental
make-up: one
thinks in terms of
he connectedness of
things, the other
thinks in terms of
parts and
sequences.
’’
— GABRIELE LUSSER
‘‘
RICO,
AUTHOR OF WRITING
THE NATURAL WAY
What [a writer]
knows is almost
always a matter of
the relationships he
establishes, between
example and
generalization,
between one part of a
narrative and the
next, between the
idea and the
counter idea that
the writer sees is
also relevant.
’’
— ROGER SALE,
AUTHOR OF
ON WRITING
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