The Argument Is a Story

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Introduction
4. The Primal Scene of Academic Writing 1
5. On Rules (and Rule-Breaking) 3
6. How to Read This Book 13
7. 1 The Care and Feeding of the Academic Reader
8. Relationship Advice: The Clasp of the Hand 15
9. On Extended Metaphors 19
10. Writing as a Journey for Two 23
11. Why the Academic Reader Is a Different Animal Than the General Reader 29
12. Signposting, Quoting, and Other Important Do’s and Don’ts 37
13. 2 Everything Is a Story
14. The Argument Is a Story 50
15. Don’t Write It from Beginning to End 56
16. Let’s Start with the Title . . . 58
17. The Architecture of Arguments 60
18. Paragraphs 86
19. Sentences 100
20. Citations 108
21. The Basics of Visual Storytelling 112
22. How to Test whether You’re Doing Everything Right 122
23. 3 Jargon and Judgment
24. Most Difficulty Is Not Useful 123
25. Writing, Teaching 126
26. Jargon and Incivility 128
27. In Search of Good and Civil Jargon (Yes, It Is Out There) 134
28. Judgment Calls 148
29. Some Common Mistakes and What They Show Us 151
30. 4 Why We Must: Because We’re All in This Together
31. Introduction 164
32. Useful Difficulty Revisited 166
33. Fearful Writing and the Search for the Goldilocks Solution 167
34. The Incredible Shrinking Audience 173
35. Politics and Academic Language 175
36. The General Public? How about the Field Next Door? 178
37. A Story to Close 182
38. Appendix: How to Use Artificial Intelligence 185
39. Acknowledgments 189
40. Notes 193
41. Index 203