Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
    Unavailable
    How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
    Unavailable
    How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
    Ebook164 pages3 hours

    How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

    By Stanley Fish

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    New York Times Bestseller

    “Both deeper and more democratic than The Elements of Style” —Adam Haslett, Financial Times

    “A guided tour through some of the most beautiful, arresting sentences in the English language.” —Slate

    In this entertaining and erudite gem, world-class professor and New York Times columnist Stanley Fish offers both sentence craft and sentence pleasure, skills invaluable to any writer (or reader).

    Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptness of finely crafted sentences and breaks them down into digestible morsels, giving readers an instant play-by-play. Drawing on a wide range of great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works. It is a book that will stand the test of time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 25, 2011
    ISBN9780062006851
    Author

    Stanley Fish

    Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University and a visiting professor of law at Cardozo University. He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He has received many honors and awards, including being named the Chicagoan of the Year for Culture. He is the author of many renowned books, including Winning Arguments and How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. Fish is a former weekly columnist for The New York Times. His essays and articles have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, and The Atlantic.

    Read more from Stanley Fish

    Related to How to Write a Sentence

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Humble Words Organized Beautifully: Ward Farnsworth on Style

      Aug 19, 2020

      Farnsworth's philosophy of composition is wonderfully anarchic when compared to the partisans of prescription who dominate the writing classroom and the style-guide racket. The post Humble Words Organized Beautifully: Ward Farnsworth on Style appeare

      12 min read

    • Article

      How to Write the Perfect Five-Paragraph Essay

      Sep 4, 2019

      The classic comp exercise is often thought of as facile—the opposite of mature, fully realized work. That's exactly why Rion Amilcar Scott took it on. The post How to Write the Perfect Five-Paragraph Essay appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Set the Hook With Great Beginnings

      Oct 18, 2021

      As a novice fisher, I’ve only caught a few fish, but I’m already thinking about better ways to hook more. Likewise, as a writer, I think a lot about how to write beginnings that will hook readers. Just as fishing advice abounds, so too does writing a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Bookish

      May 21, 2019

      There’s no one right way to live a writing life (unless, of course, you never write a word). But how does one start being a writer? Who’s allowed to call themselves a “writer,” anyway? And beyond grammar and syntax, what does a person need to know be

      1 min read

    • Article

      Better writing NOW

      May 6, 2021

      Better writing NOW
      5 min read

    • Article

      Writing Your First Article

      Sep 18, 2019

      After all your hard work and writing the perfect query, you now have an article writing assignment. The editor has detailed the word count, deadline, the rights, and the payment, and now it’s time to write the article. Keep in mind everything you kno

      6 min read

    • Article

      How To Write A Bestseller

      Oct 5, 2018

      I have a friend—call him Tom—who, like me, is a writer. Tom has written many novels over a long and enviable publishing career, and his novel-writing philosophy, related to me over various drinks at various bars, can be summarized as follows: Write w

      6 min read

    • Article

      Write To Order

      Sep 11, 2021

      Write To Order
      5 min read

    • Article

      Words Matter

      Apr 14, 2021

      Words Matter
      9 min read

    • Article

      Personal Essays: What Should I Write?

      Sep 18, 2019

      The most frequent mistake newcomers to nonfiction make is picking a subject that’s lackluster, self-congratulatory, or just a diary-like rendering of something mundane they went through. Sorry, but no editors I know want to publish a piece about how

      8 min read

    • Article

      Spellbound

      Oct 18, 2021

      Reading has always seemed, to me, to be the purest form of magic. Collections of letters organized in ways our minds recognize to be words, arranged in sentences that somehow, by the amazing workings of our brains, transport us to places real or imag

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Importance of Giving a Shit: On ‘Dreyer’s English’

      Feb 27, 2019

      I don’t mean to be grand about it—truly I wrote the book to be helpful and amusing, not to make a statement—but it seems to have struck a nerve. The post The Importance of Giving a Shit: On ‘Dreyer’s English’ appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Time Is Now Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Oct 10, 2018

      Suggested Reading:The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press, May 2017) by Dinty W. Moore The director of creative writing at Ohio State University and author of a number of books of literary no

      2 min read

    • Article

      Writing In Rhythm

      Jun 19, 2019

      Often when people talk about “the music of language” they make it sound like a mere frill, something we add to “dress up” plain writing. I don’t agree with this view. At the heart of language, I hear music—word-music, akin in many ways to instrumenta

      8 min read

    • Article

      On Semicolons And The Rules Of Writing

      Jul 10, 2018

      1. Kurt Vonnegut’s caution against the use of semicolons is one of the most famous and canonical pieces of writing advice, an admonition that has become, so to speak, one of The Rules. More on these rules later, but first the infamous quote in questi

      6 min read

    • Article

      Editing For Grammar

      Mar 20, 2019

      Although most writers and editors have received extensive training in written English, we still make mistakes—all the time. The Careful Writer, Words into Type, The Elements of Style and other sources offer voluminous instruction and examples for wr

      9 min read

    • Article

      The First Five Pages

      Jan 7, 2021

      The First Five Pages
      5 min read

    • Article

      12 Foolproof Ways To Fail As A Writer

      Dec 21, 2021

      Whether you’re just now launching into writing or you’re an old pro, here are 12 surefire ways to fail this year as you pursue your dreams within the writing world. You’ll be tempted to compare other authors’ sales figures, reviews, likes, comments,

      4 min read

    Reviews for How to Write a Sentence

    3.5/5

    144 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Very good book, easy to read and understand. Thank you
    • 5/5
      This book is an invitation to engage into pieces of writing by observing and (re-) writing.
      As such it is not the clear cut workbook some people might expect, but there are great practice suggestions throughout it, that will keep one occupied.

      Something that struck me as particular helpful early on, was his suggestion to practice replicating sentences that I like with grammatically correct but nonsensical words. (He uses a sentence from N.A. Chomsky to illustrate: "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.")
      I have followed other advice for academic writing and found their examples exceedingly arduous to complete, whenever they required my sentences to be applied to my field of research and make sense.
      Why? Because I would ever so often discover that my knowledge as a young B.A. student was insufficient to make those statements! xD
      How are you supposed to focus on writing, when all you can think about is the content? (aka suffer from academic imposter sydrome)

      Anyway, it's greatest strength is the constant analysis of example sentences, which clarifies how the reader may discover new ways of reading & thinking about texts.
      I find these very motivating to practice independently with the material that I like to read and eventually emulate.

      A word of caution may be required for those readers that tend to take the authors words, or examples as dogma.
      Fish takes his examples from a wild field of rather commonly read authors, or at least famous ones, which should make the topic more engaging for readers of different tastes.
      But this choice could arguably lead to some readers feeling insecure, because they attach such a "superior level" to these famous writers, that it will feel imossible to reach.
      Again, I believe his recommendations to use nonsensical words and practice with one's own favorite literature acts as a great relief to such problems.

      Albeit short, this book is definitely worth a recommendation.
    • 2/5
      The half of this book that's about "How to Write a Sentence" is super good. The half of it that's about "How to Read One" is abysmal.
    • 4/5
      Fish is an expert, but I can't recall, after a few years, anything from this book.
    • 3/5
      My reading year began with Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. Adler mentions (p. xi) that after the book became a best-seller, it was parodied by How to Read Two Books and, more seriously, How to Read a Page. So when I saw How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, I was intrigued. With my usual marginalia noticeably absent, I must say the book was worth reading, but it is relatively easy enough to take in in one go. The book provides numerous examples of great sentences, including great beginning and ending sentences. (Dickens doesn't get a mention other than a suggestion that his were over-rated.) There are a number of exercises using various sentence types that are useful. Hemingway thought that if he could write just one good sentence, then the day was well-spent (A Moveable Feast, p. 22):I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.Fish doesn't go so far, but sees the sentence as a building block for all great writing. I particularly liked the idea that to be a writer, one has to like sentences, much like the painter who paints because she likes the smell of paint (p. 1). And the poem by Kenneth Koch really sums up this delightful little book:

      One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.

      An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty

      The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.

      The next day the Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

      I would say that the major benefit of reading this work is that it brings the sentence back as the unit of work. I tend to focus more on paragraphs as corralled ideas, but overlook the importance of the humble sentence. Having read this work, I hope I can implement some of the clever suggestions and see the role of the humble sentence in framing not just stories, but also my academic work.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I will say, that reading through these reviews; I’ve enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed the book. It seemed to me, that all the reviewers— took a sporting honor— to the way they presented there reading experiences. I am a beginner, to linguistic writing. As I have recently been showed the light of its glory. LoL (laugh out loud).
    • 4/5
      An unapologetic potboiler, and probably not of very much practical use as a self-help book. But enjoyable enough as a virtuoso display of off-the-cuff textual criticism without a safety net of technical jargon.Fish argues that we should see a sentence as a structure of logical semantic relationships between things rather than as a grammatical entity, an idea that he demonstrates in practice by taking a selection of famous and not-so-famous sentences from Great Writers and explaining how they convey meaning. Of course, Fish has been filleting the giants of Eng Lit for a living for half a century and is pretty good at it by now, so this is extremely well worth watching. Milton features heavily, as you would expect, but there's also a lot of Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Ford Maddox Ford, and the occasional venture into contemporaries like Philip Roth. Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf get a look in too. To his credit, Fish manages to hop across genres and centuries with remarkably little fuss: most of his examples need only a couple of lines of context to guide the reader along, and he manages almost entirely without resorting to the sort of technical terms that might scare beginners away. Fish isn't a Joseph Conrad or a Milton himself, of course: he's a university professor who has a lot of experience writing newspaper columns, so the text is fluent and presentable, but it doesn't pretend to be an example of what it is analysing. The hypothetical self-helper who is following along with pen and paper is encouraged to try making up variants on these formulae ("It is a far, far, duller thing that I write now than I have ever written..."), but even Fish doesn't really seem to believe that this is going to happen. He mentions that it was his publisher who proposed the title of the book, and his wife the subtitle: that figures. As a "How to write..." book, I'm sure this must sell better than if it were marketed as a beginner's guide to close-reading of English prose, which is what it really is.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I hesitate to write this review. As I read Fish's book on sentences, I constantly analyzed how he constructed his own. Now I'm writing my review, conscious that my sentences have a long way to go before even approaching greatness.Fish is a connoisseur of sentences. He's unapologetic about it:"Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. I appreciate fine sentences. I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, "Isn't that something?" or "What a sentence" (3)!His sentence collection, developed over the years, is the great strength of this book. Fish uses examples from Annie Dillard to Lewis Carroll, from John Donne to Edgar Allan Poe to illustrate his points. He isn't so enamored with a particular style of writing that he cannot appreciate and enjoy the English language in all its forms.The strongest thing I learned from How to Write a Sentence was the difference between the "subordinating style," where every sub-clause is neatly and logically tucked into place and the "additive style", where clauses ramble on to paint a mood more than argue a point.If there's a weakness in this book it's the overall feeling of pretentiousness that surfaces. The tone of his writing felt almost condescending at times. Rather than hearing the excitement of someone itching to share his sentence collection to his friends, you read the wizened teacher encouraging his students to practice, so that one day, they too will be able to write well.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Ostensibly, this is a book about how to craft an effective sentence. But it is also a celebration of those who have done it really well. Much of the book consists of examples by writers who perfected the art of constructing sentences, and by so doing helped us to perceive reality more beautifully, or ironically, or succinctly, or evocatively, than we ever would have been able to do on our own.Through numerous examples, Professor Fish demonstrates the elements of good writing: What characteristics of sentences make us want to know more of the story? How do we write such sentences? How can we combine words to reflect a certain perspective, advance a point of view, or convey a particular emotion?To my mind, the best example in the book is provided by an extensive quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail (1963). In a famous passage, the late Dr. King explained why blacks had run out of patience waiting for civil rights. He anguished over the impossibility of explaining to a six-year-old child why the world, for blacks, was like it was, and he lamented seeing “the depressing clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky….” In this short and incredibly masterful phrase, Dr. King packed in years of history; textured it with analysis; and freighted it with emotion. One can appreciate how and why he moved so many. Evaluation: Fish’s essay provides a lovely, short explication and appreciation of good writing, both for those who want to be counted among adept wordsmiths, and for those simply interested in appreciating the prowess of others.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I loved this exploration of the potential, power, and beauty that can be contained in one sentence. I highly recommend this to readers and writers.
    • 2/5
      Now here is a review I'll have to edit carefully. Like a well composed sentence of which he would approve, Stanley Fish's "How to Write a Sentence and How to Read one" has a clear formal structure, and cleaves closely to it. But, also like one of Fish's preferred sentences, it nevertheless rambles on in an unchaperoned fashion: for a short book, it is easy to put down. For all its tight formal structure, it is not clear what Fish wants to achieve, if not simply to put the world to rights. Early on, Fish dismisses Strunk & White's classic The Elements of Style and of the sort of economical writing that volume encourages. He claims Strunk & White is only of any use to those who already know not just how to write, but what devilishly complicated things like adjectives and independent clauses are. But hold on: Are the parts of speech really that intimidating? Certainly no more intimidating than Fish's own vocabulary: to avoid them, Fish suggests the reader practice identifying the logiical relationships that constitute (or are constituted by) sentences by picking four or five items from around the room and joining them with "a verb or a modal auxiliary"! The irony runs on: The back half of the book extols sentences, itself in sentences, that no-one without a passion for a well-placed subjunctive would have a hope of comprehending. All the same this is no technical manual. In his first half Fish airily proposes some formal sentence structures types and counsels the reader to practise them. There are just three, and they seem arbitrary: the "subordinating style", where descriptive clauses refine and further describe an initial proposition (often sentences with "which" or "that" in them - "the bed that you make is the one you have to lie in"); the "additive style", where each additional clause augments the content to preceding ones (so, "the fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free"); and the "satyric" style, which doesn't seem to be a formal sentence structure at all, but Fish's own prescription for being witty. I'm not sure why these would be the fundaments of any linguistic structure, other than because Fish says so, nor what to do about sentences, like this one, that attempt to do all three. Nor that there aren't perfectly well sentences that do none. (Most of James Ellroy's never get that far, for example). Talk of James Ellroy reminds me: what Fish's prescription, contra Strunk, White and Ellroy's (now There would be a fine book on style!) encourages verbosity. Fish loves long, wordy, flowery writing: he's a lawyer, after all. He devotes he second half of his book to a canter through his favourite sentences from literature. Most, to my eyes, could have been improved with a full stop or two and hearty use of a red pen, and all seemed selected as much to burnish the author's own intellectual credentials as anything else. Fish believes that Strunk & White's preference for concision is a modern error that robs the language of richness and diversity. Now, granted, I don't always practice what I preach, but I profoundly disagree: It is easy (as Fish demonstrates, using his subordinate and additive templates) to write infinitely long sentences. All you need is to be bothered enough to do so. It is harder to write short ones. It is much harder to write good short ones. Elongating a sentence for the sake of it is a charlatan's ruse. It appeals only to the pretentious and those who charge by the hour, as lawyers do. The real challenge, as far as I can see, is importing all that richness and complexity as economically as possible. Thus I can't recommend this book based on its billing. If you do want to learn, simply, how to write and read a sentence, then - well, try Strunk & White. If you like the idiosyncratic peregrinations of a bon vivant law and literature professor, perhaps this is your book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I feel like I'm going to come back to this book over a period of time to try and figure out what it is that I read. For a book on writing sentences, that's probably not good.
    • 3/5
      Fish is the same obnoxious, pompous ass intellectual he's always been but he does have some interesting and entertaining things to say about the appreciation and craft of writing in this book.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful little book. I really fell in love with his dissection of great sentences. I thought I liked each sentence, but I had to admit, after his analysis, I saw them in a whole new light.
    • 4/5
      Simply delightful. Stanley Fish appreciates “sentences that take your breath away.” His enthusiasm is infectious, fuelled by examples drawn from great literature. He makes you want to read each of those works (and countless others) slowly, so that you can savour every last sentence.This is not a manual of style or correct usage; comparisons with Strunk and White are misplaced. There are a few simple exercises suggested, but what Fish is aiming at is not pedagogy, and certainly not pedantry. It is, rather, I think, a genuine wish to encourage readers (and writers) to refocus on the very stuff that makes great literature great: sentences.What are sentences? They are basic building blocks of meaning, an organization of items in the world, a structure of logical relationships. It sounds a bit like the early Wittgenstein re-heated by J.L. Austin. It’s not. Stanley Fish is an unapologetic child of the New Criticism. His formula – Sentence craft equals sentence comprehension equals sentence appreciation – is nothing less than a justification for steeping oneself in the finest sentences that the history of literature can provide. Which is precisely what he does.
    • 2/5
      While the sections on parataxis and hypotaxis (additive and subordinating style respectively) are worth the price of admission, the title is deceptive since Fish is less interested in helping you write better sentences than he is in analyzing those he likes. So the subtile would be more accurate. Nonetheless he is passionate and its infectious and he is a connoisseur . Still readers will be better served checking out Francine Prose's How to Read as a Writer and Virginia Tufte's marvelous Artful Sentences remains the definitive work on sentence components.
    • 4/5
      Stanley Fish presents the readers with a variety of sentences and an analysis of their content. In each case, he discusses word choice, meanings conveyed, flow, and probably some stuff I’ve forgotten. His intent is to enable the reader to understand the value in the sentences, recognize different structural forms, and, if not to write better sentences, then to appreciate a well-written sentence.The book has three sections. The first presents key sentences, and he analyzes their form. Then provides new sentences using the same to show their presentation forms and what they convey.The second portion discusses first and last sentences. It discusses how first sentences set the stage for the rest of the story, and how last sentences create (sometimes) closure.The last section lost me a bit. Supposedly it discusses self-referential sentences, but maybe I didn’t quite get it.Stanley makes very good use of examples from famous pieces of literature. It is an easy read with good information.
    • 4/5
      Stanley Fish argues that sentences rather than words are the material that writers work with. Piles of words mean nothing until they slide into their ordained places, until they relate to each other in particular and logical ways, until they combine with other words to make meaning. If we want to write well and clearly then he insists we must focus on forms. Fortunately for most younger Australians he doesn't mean old fashioned grammatical forms but a logical sequence of linkages between actor, action and the object of the action.He gives some wonderful examples from the greats of what he calls the subordinating style, the additive style and the satiric style and encourages us to copy them by substituting words that perform the same function within a sentence. His comments on the function and importance of first and final sentences cut straight to the marrow and made me reconsider the economy and efficiency of my leading sentences.In the final pages he turns his attention to the actual content of sentences - and this is where he comes unstuck. In the earlier chapters he uses modern and contemporary examples. The last chapter dwells on examples from centuries well past, alluding to ancient and biblical knowledge and using archaic language that many readers might struggle with.Although I read the early chapters hungrily I became bogged down towards the end and found it difficult to finish. However I have added to my armoury of knowledge about writing and now have a better understanding of how words function within sentences without having to revise all the grammatical jargon of my school days.