Style

It is natural for a student of english who wishes to become proficient in Essay-Writing
to read the work of successful essayists. But he must remember, if he is preparing for an
examination, that there are certain forms that are not to be imitated.
A popular essayist has won his special public, and his personality is so well known and
well liked by his regular readers that his name alone at the head of an essay is enough
to arouse in them a strong interest in what he has to say.

Hence he can write freely in the first person singular, that is, using the pronoun "I";
but this is a manner that the student should carefully avoid, unless it is specifically
demanded, because it assumes a reputation that does not exist.

Again, there are certain elaborately unusual methods of treatment that are typical of
certain essayists--Bacon,Lamb,Macaulay,Matthew Arnold,G.K. Chesterton, for example--and
even if the student could achieve any-thing similiar, he could not do so within the time
limit of an examination.

It is inadvisable for a student to copy the mannerisms of other writers, or consciously
to try the develop his own.
With practice in writing, once the elementary difficulties of the craft have disappeared,
everybody acquires his own style.
It is useless to try to force its development.

By: Admin  http://high-english-writing.blogspot.com/