"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”
E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910),
ch. 22
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OUR THREE CRITERIA
1.
Word choice
Is the best word in the best place throughout this essay? How many words do not seem to be the very best possible choices? Has the author been as specific as possible? Has the author used examples and “word pictures” as needed, that is, “illustrations, analogies, vivid quotations, metaphors, similes” (Trimble 76)? Does the prose delight the reader with wit, fresh phrases, new insights, fresh images?
COMMENTS:
RATING:
7 The diction appears to be absolutely perfect: fresh, witty, and very specific. You cannot see anywhere that it could possibly be improved.
6 The diction appears to be perfect, and you cannot see how it might be improved, but it is not very witty, fresh, or striking.
5 The diction is first-rate but there are one or two words that could be replaced with better ones.
4 The diction is good but there are one or two words and/or one or two sections that might be improved by revision.
3. The diction is adequate but the author does not appear to have taken the time to revise for word choice.
2. The diction is mediocre, boring, at times vague: lots of useless repetition, empty abstractions, passive voice, needlessly protracted sentences, empty intensifiers, expletives and impersonal constructions like “there is” and “it is.”
1. The word choice is so poor that at times it is difficult to tell exactly what the author is trying to say.
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2.
Conciseness
Is the author using only as many words as are absolutely necessary, avoiding repetition, redundance, wordiness, unnecessary modifiers, empty intensifiers, unnecessarily long and convoluted sentences?
COMMENTS:
RATING:
7. Succinct, powerful prose, undiluted by unnecessary verbiage. No impression at any time that the author was writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count.
6. Economical prose. No section, no word choice, could possibly be revised for conciseness. No impression at any time that the author was writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count.
5. Fairly concise prose, but various words if not sections suggest there is some redundance or repetition that could cut to increase the conciseness. Not sure if at times the author was writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count.
4. Adequate prose but some repetition, redundance, wordiness, unnecessary modifiers, empty intensifiers, or unnecessarily long and convoluted sentences and thus would benefit clearly from cutting the waste. Author at times is probably writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count.
3. Not much doubt that the author at times is probably writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count. Essay needs excision of repetition, redundance, wordiness, unnecessary modifiers, empty intensifiers, or unnecessarily long and convoluted sentences.
2. Not much doubt that the author is often writing just to stretch the essay to fit a minimum word count. Essay needs excision of repetition, redundance, wordiness, unnecessary modifiers, empty intensifiers, or unnecessarily long and convoluted sentences.
1. The excess verbiage is so great that some of the meaning of the essay is obscured.
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3.
Punctuation
Has the author used punctuation as the traffic signals of the language: telling us to when to slow down, what to notice, when to detour, when to stop? Has the author used punctuation to guide you through the essay without hesitating or stumbling (and thus making you retrace your steps and read a sentence again)? Has the author used punctuation the way a composer uses musical notation to show you how to perform the prose in your mind?
Has the author read and understood the relevant readings in the course anthology on punctuation, such as the following? Are the paired bracketing devices - - parentheses, dashes, quotation marks, appositives (paired commas) - -complete? Has the author avoided comma splices? Does the author make good use of colons and semicolons? Does the author know how to use hyphens with compound adjectives and numbers? Does the author know when to use quotation marks and how they work with other forms of punctuation? Does the author know when to use ellipses and when to use brackets instead of parentheses?
Has the author read and understand the section on punctuation in the Penguin handbook covering not only the issues above but also periods, apostrophes, exclamation points, slashes, etc. ?
COMMENTS:
RATING:
7 The author has used punctuation like a great composer uses musical notation and as a result the prose flows beautifully. The punctuation appears to be perfect.
6 The punctuation guides the reader effectively, and there are no moments of hesitation or stumbling as a result, but the punctuation could probably work even better if revised.
5 The punctuation is generally effective, but there are one or two places where it could be changed, added, or removed to improve the flow of the essay.
4 There is some doubt as to how much of the assigned reading on punctuation has been read or understood. In as much as half of the essay the flow would benefit from changing, adding, or removing punctuation.
3 .Not much of the assigned reading on punctuation has been read or understood. In as much as two-thirds of the essay the flow would benefit from changing, adding, or removing punctuation.
2. The author appears unaware of the appropriate use of many modes of punctuation, and most of the flow of the essay suffers as a result.
1. The punctuation is atrocious and the essay does not flow at all.
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ADVICE FOR ACHIEVING BETTER WORD CHOICE
Adapted from John Trimble’s Writing with Style
by Adam Vramescu
The function of college writing is to convey a point as clearly and concisely as possible, without sounding too casual or too stuffy. Our working rule is “Don’t write anything that’s too formal or convoluted to say out loud, but not everything you say aloud is focused enough to commit to writing.” So how to achieve this clarity and conciseness?
Trimble lists five specific ways to serve your readers’ needs (8)
(or, five reasons your high-school English teacher was wrong):
Clarity is how clear your writing is, from the reader’s perspective (not your own).
Tests for clarity:
1. What does this sentence mean? Explain the sentence to yourself. If there’s a more direct way to say it, wouldn’t your reader appreciate hearing it?
2. Why/How? Have you explained the reason for each claim you make? Have you analyzed properly? (Ex: “Hamlet is Shakespeare’s finest work.” WHY??)
3. Like what? Are you being specific enough? (Ex. “The character of Hamlet displays the qualities of a tragic hero.” LIKE WHAT???)
Vigorous Verbs
Fact #2: Good prose is direct, definite. That’s a quote from WWS (56). Your aim is to cut to the fat and get to the point. Trimble uses the analogy of a handshake—a firm handshake inspires confidence, and so will direct prose. Remember, your goal is to make a successful argument—so sell yourself a little, will you? Meanwhile, vague writing (lots of passive voice, needlessly protracted sentences, empty intensifiers, expletives and impersonal constructions like “there is” and “it is”) is like a weak handshake.
This tip admits you into the secret writer’s club: “[T]he verb acts as the power center of most sentences” (57).
So remember that impetuosity/prudence sentence? Let’s check up on it: “Prudence now tempers his impetuosity.” Much better!
A note: Passive voice, expletives, and the like aren’t uniformly bad. There are situations where you’ll find them preferable, such as when the agent doesn’t matter, or when you’d like to soften your tone, or when you’re using it for emphasis, such as “Charles alone was injured in the accident” (57). But don’t let these be your default; use them stylistically. Tread carefully.
Freshness, WIT
EXAMPLES
“There is no deodorant like success.” –Elizabeth Taylor
“. . .the drama, which develops at about the speed of creeping crab grass. . . .” –John Aldridge
“He had an upper-class Hoosier accent, which sounds like a bandsaw cutting galvanized tin.” –Kurt Vonnegut
“Have I been toiling to weave a labored web of useless ingenuity?” –T.S. Eliot, after “several paragraphs of highly theoretical speculation.”
Writing becomes fun when we bring words to life. We have the opportunity “to delight our reader with arresting phrases” and images. Moreover, if you’re really playing the game, you’ll be able to surprise your reader (as Eliot did in the above quote). Trimble thinks of baseball: “A skilled pitcher mixes up his pitches. He’ll throw a fastball, then a curve, maybe a change-up, then a knuckleball. Skilled writers work the same way…feeding our appetite for…a fresh idea, a fresh phrase, or a fresh image” (59).
Secret writer’s club tip #2: Images and metaphors are your artillery against blandness.
“He wrote with a surgical indifference to feelings” –William Nolte
“A professor must have a theory, as a dog must have fleas.” –H.L. Mencken
Wow, a surgical indifference? The idea, here, is to search constantly for the perfect image. Or, as Trimble says, “Always be thinking in terms of ‘like’” (61). This is seriously advanced stuff, but if you’re up to the challenge, try to incorporate some images, metaphor, or wit into your papers.
Remember, of course, that freshness is not synonymous with humorousness, and you must adapt your wit to your rhetorical situation. Know your audience. Just like you wouldn’t crack a dead baby joke at a pro-life convention, you might not want to trot out a side-splitter in a serious research paper for a humorless professor. Freshness¸ though, is adaptable to any rhetorical situation. We always enjoy hearing something from a new perspective. In terms of a research paper or analysis, freshness might help you put a new spin on your analysis.
And everything in moderation. Freshness is a flourish intended to surprise your reader, not an enterprise to be taken on once a sentence. Works that attempt the latter are called “groaners” and promptly cast into the fire.
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ADVICE FOR ACHIEVING BETTER CONCISENESS
Adapted from John Trimble’s Writing with Style
by Adam Vramescu
“Most of us write as if we’re paid a dime a word” (53).
THE RESULT IS vague writing (lots of passive voice, needlessly protracted sentences, empty intensifiers, expletives and impersonal constructions like “there is” and “it is”)
Conciseness is saying only as much as you mean to say, avoiding wordiness or repetition.
Tests for conciseness:
1. Have you repeated a word a number of times? Could you find synonyms? Cut the word in some instances? Combine sentences so you don’t have to use the word?
2. Have you repeated an idea? Occasionally we write two sentences in a row that say essentially the same thing. Make sure each sentence answers a question posed by the preceding one rather than simply restating it.
Tip: Verbs are your best tool to say exactly what you mean, so have you used the clearest (not the fanciest) verb possible?
Sometimes clear verbs already lurk in disguise as nouns.
Ex: “Hamlet’s feeling for his father’s death is grievance.”
Find the lurking verb… How about grievance? Grievance = grieve.
So… “Hamlet grieves his father’s death.” Much simpler!
Are you using specific words? What do the following words mean?: very, definitely, extremely, truly, ultimately, honestly, etc. The answer: not a whole lot.
Instead of “the desert is very hot,” why not “the desert is scorching”?
Instead of “I ate the pie quickly,” why not “I devoured the pie”?
Empty intensifiers actually dull the effect of the word! To a reader, “very hot” doesn’t really mean “more than regular-hot.” It reads more like “very zzzzzzzzz…” So remember to use descriptive language! It’s more precise and more fun to use.
Myth: Longer sentences are more intelligent than shorter ones. The truth is that sentences don’t have brains and, as such, can’t be intelligent. But in seriousness, let’s think about this: Are long sentences more refined than shorter sentences? We actually think in longer phrases—Trimble calls them “ready-made.” He goes on to say that since these phrases have “the added attraction of sounding elegant,” they don’t seem intuitively bad. But!—“This habit of thinking in prefab phrases slowly dulls our sensitivity to words as words” (53). So what’s the harm? Try these bad boys of diction: Wordiness, repetition, cliché.
Fact #1: There’s a shorter way to say it. Keep an eye on your connecting words, especially. Prepositions, conjunctions, and the like. They’re usually hiding something.
Here’s some typical sentence protraction, from WWS: “His bold and brash temper has been replaced by a careful and prudent manner.” Where’s the repetition there? Check the whopping four adjectives. The sentence was “His impetuosity has been replaced by prudence,” still not a gem but not a clunker.
