Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style [Paperback]

Virginia Tufte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2006

In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style,Virginia Tufte shows how standard sentence patterns and forms contribute to meaning and art in more than a thousand wonderful sentences from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  The book has special interest for aspiring writers, students of literature and language, and anyone who finds joy in reading and writing.

". . . Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, generally recognized as the best study of sentence style."--Brooks Landon, University of Iowa, in Building Useful Sentences, page 122. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Graphics Pr; first published feb 2006, is available immediately edition (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0961392185
• ISBN-13: 978-0961392185
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book for All Writers, June 16, 2006

By 

Bruce Henricksen (Duluth, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Paperback)

If you care about language, and especially if you write, this is a book to have on hand. Virginia Tufte's project in Artful Sentences is not simply to explain the rules of English sentence structure, although the book is certainly useful in that regard. But Tufte seeks also to demonstrate what it is that turns syntax, in the hands of our greatest writers, into art. She shows how syntax can fuse with feeling and how, ultimately, it can become symbolic. This book will help the reader to appreciate verbal art, and it will help the writer to approach it.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable collection of over 1000 sentences demonstrating the utilization of syntax to create a distinctive writing style, June 3, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Paperback)

Artful Sentences: Syntax As Style by Virginia Tufte (Distinguished Emeritas Professor of English at the University of Southern California) is a remarkable collection of over one-thousand sentences demonstrating the utilization of syntax to create a distinctive writing style, and which were selectively compiled by Professor Tufte from the works of authors published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Exemplifying the use of syntax to create a uniquely recognizable writing style, Artful Sentences features sentences showcasing every imaginable style as an writer, speechmaker, essayist, storyteller, and novelist, ranging from the example of Frank Lloyd Wright to David Gelernter. With a logical and definitive analysis of the actual root sentence structure, Artful Sentences is very strongly recommended for linguistics, literature, and English students, as well as aspiring authors seeking to distinguish their work in the highly competitive publishing marketplace.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elevates sentence structure to high art, March 2, 2007

By 

Nostromo "Steve" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Paperback)

I cannot put this book down. It is beautifully bound and published. Virginia's insight into sentence structure and style expose the sheer beauty of the English language. She talks of participles, prepositions, nouns, verbs, phrases, all as if they are musical notes in the great symphony of the sentence, the orchestration of the paragraph. Her examples are exquisite and she dissects each, how it flows, how each part of the sentences has a particular effect, how the effects impact the reader.
Buy this book, read it again and again.