to the intellect. It conveys information which incorporates both bare facts and
reasoning processes. In this task the writer has to tell the reader exactly what
they want them to know. Clear writing does this best. Writing is made clear
when it stems from a “precision of thought”.
5
It proceeds like a traveller on a
journey in a step-by-step way, where each idea flows logically from the one
before it.
In order to deliver information clearly, a text performs one main task and two
ancillary tasks.
(1)
The main task of a text is to store information in an orderly or structured
way so that a reader can easily understand the text.
(2)
The two ancillary tasks of a text are as follows.
(i) The text facilitates retrieval of specific pieces of information (for
example the name or a statute or a statement of a legal principle) by a reader
when it provides appropriate tables such as a table of statutes or an index.
(ii) The text facilitates the reader’s understanding of the information by
providing appropriate aids. These might consist of a summary of the text, or
an explanation of complex or technical terms that can be accessed through an
index or a glossary.
Emotion
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality
touched by emotion.
6
7
Embellishing directions to a traveller so as to enhance the joy of their journey
by pointing out places of interest represents the subjective or rhetorical side of
writing. This rouses sensation or emotion in the reader. For example, you give
your reader joy because of the style with which you write.
8
This joy comes
from the “how” rather than the “what” – the way in which you say something,
a “felicity of expression,” as distinct from the content of the text.
9
This function of writing is obviously addressed to the senses.
Senses, when
aroused, produce emotions, which involve not only a cognitive function but a
physiological response as well. We feel something, as reflected in the
metaphors that we use to describe the effect of emotional writing - it gets you
___________________
5
Gibbs (1993) p 495
6
Matthew Arnold Literature and Dogma (1883)
7
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
8
So far as relevant, The Macquarie Dictionary
1982 Macquarie
Library defines style to mean “the features of a literary composition
belonging to the form of expression other than the content”.
9
Gibbs (1993) p 495
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