Terrific breakdown here:

http://davidisaak.blogspot.com/2009/02/thinking-about-thinker-attributions.html

by the ever-reliable MNWer David Isaac, about why and when you might want to use the 'thinker attributions' that the tiresome CW-rule-peddlers keep telling you to cut...

Emma

Emma

Interesting (both his post and yours that gave rise to it).

Edwin wondered whether to print out the blog and hand a copy of it to his CW tutor at the next class. Perhaps it would stem the torrent of criticisms of his speech and thought tags. Or would she take it the wrong way and assume he was trying to undermine her authority? On balance, he reflected, it might be best to carry on ignoring her advice while conceding a few token deletions here and there. In any case, what was the point of arguing with a closed mind? He closed the browser and picked up the manuscript he had been editing. Oh God! There were seven think tags in the first paragraph.

You're right though. We often need to know how he is thinking (not to mention where, when and how quickly) in addition to what he is thinking.

As well as supporting the five circumstances mentioned, I find that launching into untagged thought is often too abrupt and that having a long stretch untagged intrudes into the general flow of prose and dialogue. Total absence of tags in anything except first person or extremely close thrid person narration changes the degree of closeness too sharply. On the other hand, if a tag creeps into every sentence of thought, it can become tedious. As ever, a judicious mixture rather than an extreme in either direction is surely the answer.

I totally agree about not having quotation marks, single or double, for any thought activity.

Chris