English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003
Developing Your Style
Chapter 12 Developing Your Own Writing Style
Part 5 Struttin Your Stuff with Style
As you learned earlier in this chapter, style is made up of many elements. These include sentences, especially their length and structure. Style is also created by description, repetition, voice, parallel structure, and punctuation. Now,
1. Style and sentences
Let’s look at these stylistic elements in greater detail.
• Suit your sentence length to your topic. When your topic is complicated or full of numbers, use short, simple sentences to aid understanding. When your topic is less complex, use longer sentences with subordination to show how ideas are linked together and to avoid repetition.
• Clear writing uses sentences of different lengths and types to create variety and interest. Craft your sentences to express your ideas in the best possible way. Mix simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences for a more effective style. Review Chapters 8 and 9 for a complete discussion of the four sentence types.
• Overall, vary the length of your sentences. The unbroken rhythm of monotonous sentence length creates a dull style.
• Select the subject of each sentence based on what you want to emphasize. Since readers focus on the subject of your sentence, make it the most important aspect of each thought.
2. Style and description
• Add adjectives and adverbs to a sentence (when suitable) for emphasis and variety. Expand sentences with adjectives and adverbs. When you want to avoid a very brief sentence, add modifiers. Base your decision to expand a sentence on its focus and how it works in the context of surrounding sentences.
• Use verbs rather than nouns to communicate your ideas. This makes your writing more forceful and less wordy. For example, replace forms of to be with action verbs, as the following example shows:
Weak: The advantages of shopping ahead is saving time and money.
Improved: Shopping ahead will save you time and money.
Quick Tip
There will be times when you’ll have to use “big words,” especially if they are technical terms or necessary jargon. Much of the time, however, big words just set up barriers between you and your audience. Instead, always choose words that suit your purpose and audience.
3. Style and repetition
Repeat key words or ideas to achieve emphasis. Only repeat the words that contain a main idea or that use rhythm to focus attention on a main idea. Repetition is a key element in many of our most famous speeches, such as John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. Kennedy used repetition to capture the cadences of natural speech to create one of the most memorable lines of the twentieth century: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
4. Style and voice
• Use the active voice, not the passive voice, as you learned in earlier chapters.
• In informal writing, use the pronoun you to engage your readers. The second-person pronoun you (rather than the third-person he, she, one) gives your writing more impact because it directly addresses the reader, as this example shows:
Weak: Deductions from one’s account will be posted on the first of the month.
Improved: Deductions from your account will be posted on the first of the month.
5. Style and punctuation
Your choice of punctuation also has a critical influence on your writing style because it determines the degree of linkage between sentences. Further, it suggests whether sentence elements are coordinating or subordinating. Here are some guidelines:
• Use a period to show a full separation between ideas. However, be aware that a series of short, declarative sentences often creates a tense and choppy style.
• Use a comma and a coordinating conjunction to show the following relationships: addition, choice, consequence, contrast, or cause.
• Use a semicolon to show that the second sentence completes the content of the first sentence. The semicolon suggests a link but leaves it to the reader to make the connection.
• Use a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb (a word such as nevertheless, however, etc.) to show the relationship between ideas: addition, consequence, contrast, cause and effect, time, emphasis, or addition.
