Notes Sept 27- Oct 1

Writing Style and Syntax


Nuts and Bolts of College Writing packets

• Clarity- being clear in thoughts and words
• to achieve clarity use...
• short active verbs- to convey action
• subjects that match up with their actors- to bring main action into subject-verb part of the sentence
• sustained flow of sentence from one point of view- keep story unfolding in a way that is easy for the reader to follow.
• concision- to keep reader focused on what's important
• fewer labels and more clause based on active verbs and clear actors
• instead of many complicated words- just use a few strong words to keep it clear and concise.
• build grammatical units around logical units- put actions into verbs and actors into subjects
• ex: "society is witnessing the steady progression of women towards equality..." -->"society is witnessing women's steady progression towards equality."
• Clause v. Phrase
• 2 parts of a clause: 
• noun acting as a subject
• finite, conjugated verb attached to that subject
• limited sense of time--> finite conjugated verb--> clause
• ex: "Girl walks"- finite conjugated verb- clause                                  
• "Girl walking"- no finite conjugated verb- phrase
• active voice- subject of verb performs action
• passive voice- subject receives actions
• nominalization- typical problem of student's writing
• action expressed as noun 
• allow actions to be separated from their actors
• long, shapeless strings of words
• http://www.wheaton.edu/learnres/writectr/Resources/clarity.htm
• Plain Style
• Strive to be...
• sensibly simple
• to develop a baseline style of short words
• use active verbs, simple sentence that convey clear actions or identities
• trying to teach reader something- you want to be understood
• teachers want to read in papers that you didn't just learn about the lesson- you thought about it.
• plainness better than complexity
• avoid first person, jokes, or playfulness
• scared to write plain-> don't want to expose themselves or sound dumb
• http://www.editorialservice.com/11ways.html
• Concision
• key to concision:
• build around strong verbs
• choose active voice over passive
• be suspicious of adverbs
• toss out empty words and phrases
• http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/writingtips/27.html
• Rhetoric- art or science of persuasion by means of stylistic and structural techniques
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/1
• encourages us to think of writing as a series of strategic choices
• encourages thinking about one's audience
• Academic writing- use more formal diction
• Jargon, Official Style diction
• police wouldn't say car, robber, gun, or saw but rather vehicle, alleged perpetrator, firearm, strike, and observed.
• Parallelism- any structure that brings together parallel elements
• Trouble: nested lists
• Fixes: 
• rearrange list to emphasize different elements and allow some pauses
• inversion
• focus attention to end of sentence
• Repetition- bring attention to an idea, image, or relationship to force reader to notice it.
• Very well know example: Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech
• Don't change tense in term paper!
• Rule of Three- lists come across more powerfully when they contain three items
• third term larger in force than first two

Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style

• How does author use technique to create affect and what does it mean?
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• People should live simple lives
• parallelism to show signifigance
• "...and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I can to die, discover that I had not lived."
• "...like ants..." negative connotation of society
• Repetition- "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"
• length of sentence= simplicity
• "Eva Is Inside Her Cat" by Gabriel Gracia Marquez
• Bearing burden of upper class- want to be ordinary not upper class
• - ing verbs-->make seem more rushed and desperate
• some short sentence- attention to statement
• "But it was necessary, urgent, to put a stop..." -> asyndeton- rushed
• desperate and forced
• "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" by Mark Twain
• Dunlap tries to change his name- make himself more upper class- sentences get longer as it goes on.
• "Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence
• many periods used combined with alternation of long and short sentences
• compound sentences at beginning creates dramatic irony
• inverted syntax
• "Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house."
• always anxiety in house- a part of the house
• "The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income..."
• separates mother and father- 2 different incomes but both small
• "there must be more money, there must be more money."
• comma creates rhythm
• repetition
• http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/RockingHorse.html
• "Shooting and Elephant" by George Orwell
• imperialist crippling people
• against it
• "devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd." - negative tone
• "but he was not dead," "but his breathing did not weaken," "but still he did not die,"   -repetition and words at end of sentence for emphasis

Connections

    When we discussed active and passive voice, that really stuck out to me since I remember last year my English teacher told me that was something I had to work on. I also focused on all the ideas about clarity, concision, and rhetoric as I edited my college application essays, and it was really helpful to know what to focus on.