Take Your Words From Lecture to Page — from chronicle.com by Rachel Toor
What compelling lecturers do, and how their techniques can translate to good writing.
Excerpts:
Thing is, many of the moves that the best lecturers make on the stage can translate to the page and help you draw in readers. That is especially important in writing textbooks and other work for general readers. If you can bring the parts of yourself that work in the classroom to the prose, you will delight readers as much as you do your students.
Narrative can be key. Data and research aren’t enough in either the classroom or on the page. People like to be told stories. If you want to be persuasive in both realms, use narrative to make arguments. Don’t forget that much scholarly work is really a quest. What journey can you take a reader on?
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It’s a performance on the page, too. A great lecture is a performance. So is great writing.
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Raise real questions the reader will want answers to.