Barrett opens "Charlotte" in familiar territory, giving us Austen's own words, with minor alterations: modern spellings, punctuation, paragraphing.
For the unknowledgeable, it can be blisteringly obvious, as in: "Kerouac, a fast typist, decided that he would ignore punctuation, paragraph breaks and traditional form, and type the story in one long sustained burst of energy.
When everyone has finished, encourage students to read each other's re-punctuated paragraphs and evaluate with one another the success of the experiment, and what they've learned about the uses of punctuation in creative writing.
"It had no punctuation, no paragraphs; it was a book that was to be transmitted orally from father to son".
To probe deeply into troubled consciousness, he uses modernist techniques, eliminating linear narrative, punctuation, standard paragraphs, anything that might stand between a reader and the characters' thought processes.
"I have largely restricted my interventions to matters of punctuation and paragraphing," explains the narrator.
To facilitate fast and accurate recognition, the form of writing was improved by introducing spaces between the words, developing conventions for punctuation and paragraphing, and simplifying graphic forms.
Caro now says that Shawn agreed to restore all the changes he cared most deeply about, but the magazine version nevertheless differs from the original and changes Caro's punctuation and paragraphing.
Whoever edited the manuscript of "Why We Go to Cabarets" for publication did a skillful job, replacing its many breathless dashes with more accurate punctuation, indenting for paragraphs in several places, but otherwise mostly leaving the piece alone.
