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
    The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers
    Unavailable
    The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers
    Unavailable
    The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers
    Ebook326 pages4 hours

    The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers

    By Frank L. Cioffi

    5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJan 10, 2009
    ISBN9781400826568
    Unavailable
    The Imaginative Argument: A Practical Manifesto for Writers

    Read more from Frank L. Cioffi

    Related to The Imaginative Argument

    Related ebooks

    Reference For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Is Knowledge Power?

      Jul 30, 2018

      Is Knowledge Power?
      4 min read

    • Article

      This Essentially Meaningless Conflict

      Sep 22, 2017

      MARILYNNE ROBINSON’S accomplishments are impressive by any standard: she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Humanities Medal, among other honors. But perhaps a better measure o

      8 min read

    • Article

      Inspired to Write

      Jun 30, 2021

      Inspired to Write
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why We Reject New Ideas

      Jan 29, 2024

      When the personal computer was first introduced to the public in the 1980s, some people developed what came to be known as “computerphobia,” a reluctance to talk or even read about computers, a fear of being replaced by the machine or enslaved by it,

      5 min read

    • Article

      Sheri Fink

      Mar 29, 2021

      Sheri Fink
      4 min read

    • Article

      Think Yourself Better: 10 Rules Of Philosophy To Live By

      Feb 4, 2023

      The thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Full, Frequent, And Fearless

      Sep 25, 2023

      Full, Frequent, And Fearless
      4 min read

    • Article

      It’s Time To Stop The Rot

      Feb 29, 2024

      It’s Time To Stop The Rot
      8 min read

    • Article

      Conflicting Views

      Sep 25, 2023

      Conflicting Views
      4 min read

    • Article

      What’s the Story?

      Sep 22, 2017

      I KNOW THAT EXPLORING the harmonies between science and religion is not the kind of subject your average literary magazine might focus on for an entire issue— and maybe that is why I am particularly excited about this issue of Creative Nonfiction. Lo

      4 min read

    • Article

      How to Make Sense of Contradictory Science Papers

      Jun 2, 2021

      The science you can come across today can often appear to be full of contradictory claims. One study tells you red wine is good for your heart; another tells you it is not. Over the past year, COVID-19 research has offered conflicting reports about t

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Big Idea: Do We Need To Dismantle The Literary Canon?

      Jun 12, 2023

      As someone who writes books, lectures on teacher training courses and spent 15 years teaching English literature, I’m often asked what I think should be included in the literary canon or what should replace the existing canon. It feels like a trick q

      4 min read

    • Article

      Changing Minds

      Oct 28, 2019

      Changing Minds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Scientists Have No Defense Against Awe

      Jun 12, 2016

      Eileen Pollack, author of The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ Club, hinted at the complexity of the relationship between science and the soul in a recent essay: “We need scientists who recognize the reality of this illusion we st

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tell Us What You Really Think: A Survey on the Landscape of Canadian Art Criticism

      Mar 15, 2020

      “Do you think anyone will read it?”“Okay, but did you actually like the show?”“Have you gotten paid yet?” Like any niche scene, art criticism and critics exist in tangled webs of camaraderie, competition and other contextual factors. Though we deeply

      11 min read

    Reviews for The Imaginative Argument

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words