composition is that the amount of verbiage one devotes to a point should not be too far out of line with how central it is to the argument. If a writer believes that 90 percent of the evidence and argument supports a position, then something like 90 percent of the discussion should be devoted to the reasons for believing it. If a reader is spending only 10 percent of his time on why it’s a good idea, and fully 90 percent on why he might reasonably think it’s a bad idea—while the writer insists all along that it really is a good idea—then the reader’s mounting impressions will be at
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