🎉   Please check out our new website over at books-etc.com.

Seller
Your price
£25.00
Out of Stock

The Imaginative Argument

A Practical Manifesto for Writers

By (author) Frank L. Cioffi
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: Princeton University Press, New Jersey, United States
Published: 3rd Apr 2005
Dimensions: w 156mm h 234mm d 14mm
Weight: 387g
ISBN-10: 0691122903
ISBN-13: 9780691122908
Barcode No: 9780691122908
Trade or Institutional customer? Contact us about large order quotes.
Synopsis
More than merely a writing text, The Imaginative Argument offers writers instruction on how to use their imaginations to improve their prose. Cioffi shows writers how they can enliven argument--the organizing rubric of all persuasive writing--by drawing on emotion, soul, and creativity, the wellsprings of imagination. While Cioffi suggests that argument should become a natural habit of mind for writers, he goes still further, inspiring writers to adopt as their gold standard the imaginative argument: the surprising yet strikingly apt insight that organizes disparate noises into music, that makes out of chaos, chaos theory. Rather than offering a model of writing based on established formulas or templates, Cioffi urges writers to envision argument as an active parsing of experience that imaginatively reinvents the world. Cioffi's manifesto asserts that successful argument also requires writers to explore their own deep-seated feelings, to exploit the fuzzy but often profoundly insightful logic of the imagination. But expression is not all that matters: Cioffi's work anchors itself in the actual. Drawing on Louis Kahn's notion that a good architect never has all the answers to a building's problems before its physical construction, Cioffi maintains that in argument, too, answers must be forged along the way, as the writer inventively deals with emergent problems and unforeseen complexities. Indeed, discovery, imagination, and invention suffuse all stages of the process. The Imaginative Argument offers all the intellectual kindling that writers need to ignite this creativity, from insights on developing ideas to avoiding bland assertions or logical leaps. It cites exemplary nonfiction prose stylists, including William James, Ruth Benedict, and Erving Goffman, as well as literary sources to demonstrate the dynamic of persuasive writing. Provocative and lively, it will prove not only essential reading but also inspiration for all those interested in arguing more imaginatively more successfully.

New & Used

Seller Information Condition Price
-New
Out of Stock

What Reviewers Are Saying

Submit your review
Newspapers & Magazines
"The Imaginative Argument is an extremely useful writing guide. Cioffi makes a good case for the importance of writing in our day-to-day lives - as a tool for clarifying our thoughts, persuading others, and enhancing our lives. Writing teachers as well as students will find it interesting and accessible." - Kathryn Watterson, University of Pennsylvania"