For readings that accompany the assigned revisions of this project, see READINGS. Also, be sure to keep up with the previews and postscripts at NOTES and the weekly writing assignments at WRITING PROJECTS. Below are the readings due by our class meeting on September 29.

• The mere agglomeration of detail is no free pass to the reader=s interest. The detail must be significant.

• If a phrase comes to you easily, look at it with deep suspicion; it=s probably one of the countless clichés that have woven their way so tightly into the fabric of travel writing.

• Eliminate every . . . fact that is a known attribute: don=t tell us that the sea had waves and the sand was white. Find details . . . [that] do useful work.

• Your main task as a travel writer is to find the central idea of the place you=re dealing with.

• [W]hatever place you write about, go there often enough to isolate the qualities that make it distinctive. Usually this will be some combination of the place and the people who inhabit it.

• By interviewing local men and women . . . I tapped into one of the richest veins waiting for any writer who goes looking for America: the routine eloquence of people who work at a place that fills a need for someone else.

3. This assignment calls for some basic research: take notes on what you see and hear; obtain facts wherever you can find them.  The essay should be built primarily on factual observations and descriptive details. If you turn to outside sources for information, make note of those sources. When we review drafts, we=ll discuss the best way to integrate citations into our final texts. But do keep track of your sources.

11 November 2008