Publishing & Editing: Microsructure & Macrostructure (for MQuni; unit grade – Distinction)

 Linguistics degree

1. Microsructure

It was a calming bit of self-paced instruction in the behavior of compressible fluids; it was even a useful deception of sorts, since after an hour of feeling that spotlight of air playing over your face, your thoughts full of the remembered sight of contrails in a blue sky as seen from earth – the way they first appear like narrow staves of music a little way behind a very high plane, and gradually fatten into shaving-cream crudities before fading – or of cold rides in the back of pickup trucks, when your cheek nerves grew deadened to the insistent flapping of a lock of hair that now doesn’t exist, or of the print ad for Maxell tape in which a man sits in an armchair and experiences a blast of La Mer from his speakers that sinks him deep into the cushions and flings his tie over his shoulder and tips the shade of the standing lamp, you began to think that if the real jet engines were to fail, the plane would float to earth on the output of these tame little verniers alone, as in the parlor trick in which ten guests each use one finger to lift a heavy volunteer – and as the plane lost altitude and the captain flipped desperately through the technical manuals muttering, “It’s got to be a bad chip!” one alert hero would jump up and say, “Turn your air vents to full, people!” and Ernest Borgnine would passionately chime in, “The man’s right! Do as he says!” and every arm would extend, so that from the smoking section you had the impression of an elephant herd reaching their prehensile noses for leafy leftovers on higher branches, and the plane’s descent would slow to a pilotable rate, and as we drifted lower and lower over the water, like the brave Frenchmen who crouched in the wicker passenger basket of the damaged and half-terrifying illustration for Mysterious Island (the nineteenth-century use of wicker is part of what gives ballooning such a Fragonardian, picnicky feel), or like the later Frenchmen who belly-landed on the beach in Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks, when we finally slapped down into the ocean, nobody would be dead: saved yet again by cooperative action and by our own cabin pressure system.

(Room Temperature, Nicholson Baker, 1990)

The author has used a literary device in creating the text, a relatively lengthy chain of sub-clauses and interrupting clauses, which would be clearer were they segmented into separate main clauses. The text, perhaps, refers obliquely, or implicitly, to a deadly jet aircraft incident. The device seems to construe a sense of disbelief, deliriousness, edification and irony in the character, directly subsequent to the crash, to the reader.

The relative lack of separated segments helps to construe this, in effect, shock to the reader, as, without much pause from one clause to the other, all the subsidiary clauses detail the overarching concept of the first two independent clauses (it was a calming bit of self-paced instruction in the behavior of compressible fluids; it was even a useful deception of sorts), which themselves seem to refer only obliquely to an accident.

An attempt at a split comment pattern of topical progression,

It was a calming bit of self-paced instruction in the behavior of compressible fluids; it was even a useful deception of sorts, since after an hour of feeling that spotlight of air playing over your face, your thoughts full of the remembered sight of contrails in a blue sky as seen from earth. First, that is with respect to the way they first appear like narrow staves of music a little way behind a very high plane, and gradually fatten into shaving-cream crudities before fading. Secondly, l refer to the cold rides in the back of pickup trucks…

Finally, l loved the author's use of the word earth rather than Earth...

2. Macrostructure

Find below the headings for a book on the Himalayas. Consider how you would group these headings (sequential order, level of heading). What difference to the publication does it make if you change the order or omit any of them? Would the structure change according to whether it’s was a printed or an electronic publication?

First, I might put them into the topic-based categories, with the more important for travel of those at the front ('preparing to go') and the back of the book ('travel matters', 'index'): as a travel guide it will be easier to access them there. However, the 'introduction' and 'photography' sections in the preliminary pages would also help to shape the reader's expectations of its primary contents ('regions', 'what it's all about', 'tracking', and 'climbing'). Finally, the rest of the end matter ('bibliography', 'river rafting India' – further reading) might do well to supplement and authenticate the text (Mackenzie, 2012).

Sections (without headings) and subsections, as follows:–

Foreword

Introduction 

Acknowledgements

Preparing to go

Fitness

Visas

Permits

Regulations

Immunisation

Money

Clothing and equipment 

Photography

Regions 

The Himalayan region

Kashmir

Nepal

Pakistan

Tibet

Bhutan

What’s it all about?

Natural history

History of trekking

Geography

The silk road

Culture and religion

Politics

Climate and seasons

Conservation

Trekking

Trekking styles

Choosing a trek

Trekking peaks

Climbing

Climbing - what’s involved 

Climbing styles 

What mountain

Altitude sickness

Travel matters

Cultural considerations

Staying healthy

Language

Glossary

Index

River rafting India 

Bibliography

3. Bonus question. Can you identify which famous (old) novel this synopsis is describing? 

A: Tristram Shandy