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Living in Style

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Writing on the Margins

Abstract

For years I have kept a commonplace book — more recently in a computer file. It is a collection of passages drawn from my reading and teaching, and it includes passages from student papers. In my mind I am recording moments of striking eloquence. When I turn to them, they stand as quick reminders of what has captured my attention; for my writing they serve as points of reference to individual performances and positions in a larger field of ideas or debate. I often use epigraphs at the beginnings of essays, and I almost always use them in assignments I write for courses, and the commonplace book serves as a source for these.

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© 2005 Bedford/St. Martin’s

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Bartholomae, D. (2005). Living in Style. In: Writing on the Margins. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-8439-5_1

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