Pascal on composition

Comments

1. Tony Zbaraschuk says

   5 June 2017 at 09:29

   Very true. That’s how I always wrote papers — the intro paragraph comes after all the writing.

   (Of course, as Kipling reminds us, there are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right!“

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   • Tom Simon says

     5 June 2017 at 13:14

     Of course, I don’t always do the things I post, particularly when the post is quoting someone else. For instance, my post last night was written almost exactly as it stands (with a few corrections); except that I started with the Orwell quotation, and added the Twain and Dalrymple later, when it became clear that I needed them to explain my case. In fact, I had planned to post the Orwell by itself as a ‘Quotha’, but felt the need to explain why I thought it was still important.

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2. Stephen K says

   18 June 2017 at 14:58

   I find that writing the introduction last makes it easier to look like I know what I’m doing.

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