Letter Writing - Definition and Examples

Letter writing is the exchange of written or printed messages. Distinctions are commonly drawn between personal letters (sent between family members, friends, or acquaintances) and business letters (formal exchanges with businesses or government organizations). Letter writing occurs in many forms and formats, including notes, letters, and postcards. Sometimes referred to as hard copy or snail mail, letter writing is often distinguished from forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as email and texting. In his book Yours Ever: People and Their Letters (2009), Thomas Mallon identifies some of the subgenres of the letter, including the Christmas card, the chain letter, the mash note, the bread-and-butter letter, the ransom note, the begging letter, the dunning letter, the letter of recommendation, the unsent letter, the Valentine, and the war-zone dispatch. Observations The test, I think, of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the person talking as one reads the letter, it is a good letter.(A.C. Benson, Letter-Writing. Along the Road, 1913)The art of beautiful letter writing has declined with our supposed advances, [Alvin Harlow] lamented--a cry we have been hearing ever more often in the eighty years since his book appeared. Those of us with a strong inclination toward the past must remember that, to its early writers, the handwritten or even chiseled letter must itself have seemed a marvel of modernity, and surely, even in Queen Atossas time, there were those who complained that letter writing--by its nature a virtual activity--was cutting down on all the face time that civilized Persians had previously enjoyed.(Thomas Mallon, Yours Ever: People and Their Letters. Random House, 2009)Literary CorrespondenceThe age of the literary correspondence is dying, slowly but surely electrocuted by the superconductors of high modernity. T his expiration was locked into a certainty about 20 years ago; and although William Trevor and V.S. Naipaul, say, may yet reward us, it already sounds fogeyish to reiterate that, no, we wont be seeing, and we wont be wanting to see, the selected faxes and emails, the selected texts and tweets of their successors.(Martin Amis, Philip Larkins Women. The Guardian, October 23, 2010)Historical RecordsSo much of what we know of the world stems from private letters. Our principal eyewitness account of Vesuvius derives from a letter from Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus. Our knowledge of the Roman world has been hugely enriched by the discovery in the early 1970s of inky messages on oak and birch discovered not far from Hadrians Wall in Britain. The letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and of Napoleon to Josephine show infatuation, weakness and anger--useful additions to rounded character portraits. The list carries on to the present day, with recently collected corresponden ce by Paul Cezanne, P.G. Wodehouse and Christopher Isherwood adding nuance to influential lives.(Simon Garfield, The Lost Art of Letter-Writing. The Wall Street Journal, November 16-17, 2013)The Future of Letter WritingAll communication is human-made--based upon some form of technology. It is not that some forms of communication are free from technology but rather that all modes of communication are based upon a complex relationship between the current cultural practices and the material resources necessary to support the technology. . . .Though CMC [computer-mediated communication] may, for those with access, replace letters as a means of rapid personal communication [the] lack of material fixity ensures a continued role for letters. By making a physical mark in the process of communication, letters for the moment support a number of social practices and conventions where authorship, authenticity and originality need to be ensured (e.g. in legal or business interactions).(Simeon J. Yates, Computer-Mediated Communication: The Future of the Letter? Letter Writing as a Social Practice, ed. by David Barton and Nigel Hall. John Benjamins, 2000)Jail MailIn prisons across the country, with their artificial pre-Internet worlds where magazines are one of the few connections to the outside and handwritten correspondence is the primary form of communication, the art of the pen-to-paper letter to the editor is thriving. Magazine editors see so much of it that they have even coined a term for these letters: jail mail.(Jeremy W. Peters, The Handwritten Letter, an Art All but Lost, Thrives in Prison. The New York Times, Jan. 7, 2011)Electronic Letter-WritingWhen I sift through my past weeks electronic in-box, I find easily half a dozen messages that qualify as letters in every traditional sense. They are coherently structured, written with care and design. They enlighten, they illuminate, they endear. They even follow the old epistolary ritual of signing off (not yours ever , but some venerable variant: yours . . . cheers . . . all best . . . xo). . . .[T]hese messages would probably never have come my way if the senders had been obliged to take out pen and paper. Indeed, it is the very facility of electronic communication that makes the Luddite soul tremble. . . .Even in the age of tweets and pokes and blasts, the impulse to bring order to our thoughts and lives persists, and at the risk of sounding like a technojingoist, one might argue that technology facilitates this impulse as much as it impedes it.​(Louis Bayard, Personal Compositions. The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2010)

Development of Thinking Strategies Critical Thinking

Most of us are less than what we could be. Great capacity exists within us but most of it is undeveloped and dormant. Improving in thinking is just like any other improvement, for instance improvement in ballet, in basketball or even in playing of the saxophone. Development of thinking is unlikely to take place in the absence of unconscious commitment to learn. We really don’t do the work required to help us in the improvement of thinking if we take thinking for granted. A gradual process is required in the development of our thinking, calling for plateaus of plain hard work and learning. It is absolutely hard for one to become an excellent thinker simply because he or she wishes to. Changing ones habit of thought is a long term project, happening not within weeks or months but taking place in years. We must understand that their are stages required for the development of one to be a critical thinker. Stage one: Unreflective Thinker, whereby we are very unaware of having significant problems in our thinking. Stage two, The Unchallenged Thinker; becoming aware of our thinking problems.Beggining Thinker is the third stage in which one tries to improve his or her thinking but does not do it regularly. The fourth stage is the Practicing Thinker, recognizing the necessity of regular practice. Advanced Thinker is stage five, meaning advancing in accordance to the practice and the last stage is the Master Thinker in which insightful and skilled thinking becomes a second nature. We only develop through these stages on accepting that we have a problem in thinking. Nine strategies have been suggested that any inspired person can employ to develop as a thinker, but only three have been discussed below. First strategy: Use ‘wasted’ Time. Wastage of time is a problem facing all humans. They fail to use their time in a productive and pleasurable manner, sometimes jumping from one place to another without enjoying any of the places. Matters that are totally beyond our control gets us irritated sometimes. We cause ourselves negative consequences that we could have avoided by planning well. For example, spending time unnecessarily being trapped in the traffic when we could have avoided it by leaving an hour earlier. Other times we worry unproductively and spent time regretting about the past. The key remains that the time is ’gone’, if only we had thought about it and considered our opinions we would not have spent our time the way we spent it deliberately. Then why not take advantage of the time we normally waste to practic e critical thinking during that otherwise wasted time. Second strategy; A Problem A Day. At  Ã‚   the start of everyday, perhaps when going to school or going to work, choose a problem to handle whenever you have free minutes. Identify the elements of your problem which is, what the problem really is and whether it is in alignment with my goals, purposes and needs. Wherever possible have a clear picture of the kind of problems you are dealing with and analyze it, interpreting the information. For example what sort of things you are going to have to solve it. Figure out options of action and evaluate them taking into account the advantages and disadvantages. Have a strategy towards the problem, then act and monitor the implications of the actions. Third strategy: Internalize Intellectual Standards. Every week develop a higher degree of awareness of one of the universal intellectual standards, that is, accuracy, clarity, depth, precision, relevance, significant, logicalness and breadth. Every week focus on a different universal intellectual standard. For example when focusing on clarity for a week, try to notice when not clear in communicating with others and when other is unclear in what they are communicating. Also notice when you are clear and not when reading. To be effective in these focus on the four techniques’ of clarification; stating what you are saying precisely and explicitly, elaborating on your meaning, giving examples of what you meant and using analogies such as metaphors, pictures, or diagrams for illustration. REFERENCES Paul, R Elder, L (2005) .Critical Thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your life.

The Rhetorical Strategies of the Scarlett Letter Free Essays

Grayce Byrnes Mr. Smith AP English 11-Period A 24 September 2012 The Passion of Pearl In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the hardships of a young girl named Hester forced to live with the letter A pinned to her chest in penitence for her sins in a strict Puritan town in the 1800s. The illegitimate daughter of Hester carries the same traits and qualities as Hester, making Pearl a double of Hester. We will write a custom essay sample on The Rhetorical Strategies of the Scarlett Letter or any similar topic only for you Order Now Hawthorne defines Pearl with his use of abstract diction, whimsical tone, and his selection of detail. Pearl’s character functions primarily as a symbolic character that stands for her mother and the scarlet letter. Pearl becomes the Scarlet Letter brought to life. She is dressed in elaborate, scarlet garb as if to be a real-life scarlet letter. The narrator explains her as â€Å"the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! †(Hawthorne 57). When Hester tries to discard the letter, she gets in a panic mode, as if Hester is actually discarding her. The author never really states the purpose of Pearl being the scarlet letter, but instead uses abstract ideas and prodigious vocabulary. Many people in the Puritan community believe that since Hester would not reveal the child’s father, that he must be the devil himself. Pearl has an uncanny perception of what goes on around her and constantly is seeking for the truth. The connection of Pearl to the letter and her constant obsession with finding truth leads us to believe that the letter means truth. Her excessively perceptive knowledge is almost supernatural. Hawthorne’s tone is one of a whimsical, mischievous, and capricious descriptions. Pearl’s main purpose seems to be to uncover the truth for the main characters. Once she completes her goal, â€Å"A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a party, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled†(233). Her capricious emotions and the fickle opinions of the author make it hard for the reader to decipher if the child is the evil embodiment of Hester’s sin or just the naivety and curiosity of a child. Overall, there are some striking similarities between Hester and Pearl. Even during Hester’s pregnancy, she could feel Pearl’s â€Å"wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart† (50). These emotions correlate with Hester. Her wild, desperate and defiant mood is emulated through her betrayal of the puritans through her sin. Her temper, gloom, and despondency is felt from Hester because of her forced isolation from the rest of the town and marked as an outcast. Pearl is described as beautiful, imaginative, graceful, and impulsive. These traits are also seen in Hester. Pearl is a character of mystery and has an almost supernatural essence to her. The author talks about her like she is more than human although we never know if she heaven-sent or from the devil because the author plays both sides of the argument. Pearl is a symbol of the passion that is within every human heart, and as the story ends with her finding great success in Europe, she shows us that society should never define you. I Pledge My Honor That I Have not Received Aid on this Paper _____________________________________________ How to cite The Rhetorical Strategies of the Scarlett Letter, Essay examples