Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a guide for professors and students about specifically what really happens in paragraphs and sentences to cause them to hold together in an understandable and expected way. While generalized statements are made in composition textbooks about the importance of topic sentences and prose "flow," there are typically few specifics on, say, setting and maintaining topic and how this is done. This is not addressed precisely, I think, because the "whole" is not seen and how this "whole" determines to a large degree paragraph and sentence forms and content. For instance, one must balance implicit versus explicit information with proper grammar, without confusing the reader or hearer. The latter is part of a mental schema of what is a hearer or reader expects to hear or read. This schema can be as simple as a three-part essay, with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Also, English has the expected word order of subject plus verb plus object (if the verb is transitive and requires a receiver of the action). This textbook attempts to indicate exactly what is needed to compose communicative, cohesive and "expected" content in presentations, letters, essays, stories, etc.
