The discoveries you make in the making Style is an expression of the interest you take in the making of every sentence. It emerges, almost without intent, from your engagement with each sentence. It's the discoveries you make in the making of the prose itself. Where ambiguity rules, there is no "style"—or anything else worth having. Pursue clarity instead. In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself. Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing The idea grows as they workFour principlesExpressing ideas helps to form them styleclaritymaking
Simple moments of clarity I have seen autistic children drawing at a terrific speed and I've always thought that my drawings should not be less rapid, because that speed gives them insignificance. In this speed lies their abandonment and it may cause them to be overlooked as mere doodles. However, I understand that they are like that pristine light that appears when they tell you that you have a tumour. In an instant, everything becomes clear and well-defined. All contours are cruelly illuminated as if it was worth taking a final look at the world. At such times, although the lines in the drawings clump into a skein of events that are indecipherable to ordinary mortals, they can be described in detail by the victim one by one. These are moments when weeds regain their nature as plants. Only now can I understand these drawings as simple moments of clarity. Smiljan Radić, Death at Home artclarity
Pellucidity A Definition www.thefreedictionary.com Free from obscurity and easy to understand; the comprehensibility of clear expression euphonyunderstandingthinkingclarity
One and a Half Cheers for List-Keeping An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Kenn Kaufman I don't need that birdList-chasingThe maximization method
I don't need that bird I worked for several years as a leader of birding tours, and I have met a few sad individuals who were so focused on adding to their life lists that they would refuse to look at a bird species that they had seen before, no matter how spectacular the view or how fascinating its behavior of the moment might be. “I don’t need that bird” was their standard reply.
List-chasing For a person just getting started in some area of natural history, and unabashed focus on list-chasing is a good thing, at least for a while. The trick is knowing when to stop. collections
The maximization method Keith Brown described how he got the idea “that the maximization of daily species lists of butterflies, a seemingly unscientific goal (though much employed in a sister area, ornithology), could give a large scientific fallout." For example, he described how six weeks’ effort in the Brazilian central plateau had turned up twenty-five species previously unknown for the area—but then he had adopted the “maximization” method, and in another six weeks, he had found nearly three hundred more species.