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The Original FYI Writing Guide
by Tom McBride, Professor of English and Keefer Professor in the Humanities includes Lisa's List by Lisa Haines Wright The leaders work to help students find themselves in the sort of place known as Beloit College. It's a place of varied people with varied stories and different values. At Beloit we're friendly but blunt, informal at times to the point of irreverence. Beloit students must take responsibility for their own academic destiny, but professors are easy to find and offer plenty of academic treatment. We are oriented to world affairs, to learning through non-classroom experience, and to those risky but exciting projects that cross-pollinate different fields of study. The FYI program, then, tries to help students become the best they can be by introducing them to the place known as Beloit College, where we hope they will become comfortable but never too comfortable, original and self-confident but never to the point of declining to have a fair exchange with others. This writing guide tries to convey an FYI spirit, a Beloit voice. Deirdre McCloskey, in The Writing of Economics, has written that "Good thinking is accurate, symmetrical, relevant to the thoughts of the audience, concrete yet usefully abstract, concise yet usefully full; above all it is self-critical and honest. So too is good writing." McCloskey, like all good writers, has summarized a great deal in relatively few words. She has caught our intellectual aims at Beloit, starting dramatically with the FYI Program: being careful to be correct, working hard to be persuasive, and becoming able to admit mistakes and change one's mind. But one can accomplish little without becoming a writer who cares about nitty-gritty details rather than glittering abstractions; who fusses about being both clear and believable for readers; and who has the courage to raise opposing points and answer them in advance-on the page. Good academic writing isn't primarily a matter of aesthetics, of beauty; it's mainly a matter of long thinking and hard-earned credibility. A number of people have contributed to this manual. Many of them are cited in the sections to follow. There are others, such as Professor Art Robson (Classics), who helped with the section on advice for professors; and Professors Georgia Duerst-Lahti (Political Science), John Jungck, Richard Stenstrom, Bill Flanagan (Dean of Students and Co-Director of the FYI Program), Menno Froese (Sociology), John Rapp (Political Science) and Olga Ogurtsova (Russian), who contributed anonymous samples of FYI student writing. In many ways this manual is a joint effort. Many student writers, and quite a few non-student writers, are cowards. This attitude is understandable. E. B. White, one of the best American essayists, found the blankness of the empty page in his typewriter to be terrifying. Many writers are also horrified that they might say something crystalline clear-and terribly wrong. Be not afraid. If you're a coward, you don't need a trip to the Wizard of Oz for remedy. You can change your writing habits; and slowly you'll gain justifiable trust in yourself. Even if you aren't a coward, you can become better in your bravery. This guide will help.
Some Matters of Attitude You can't write well by simply willing yourself to do so. Good writing involves technique and practice. In the next section we'll get to those. Meanwhile, however, there are some mind-sets which will help-even if they won't do the job by themselves. These attitudes are mainly matters of how you view yourself as a writer. You can always think of yourself as just a sludge trying to get by, or as a drudge trying to pad a paper into the required page-length. But such self-images can destroy in advance your performance as a writer. Here are some more positive ones: 1. Communication. Think of yourself as a communicator. Jerry Gustafson of the Economics Department says, "Write to inform, not to impress," while Economics Professor Emily Chamlee-Wright adds, "Remember that if you do not understand it, neither does the reader." Clint McCown, who teaches Creative Writing, says, "The object of these courses (in creative writing) is to teach you how to communicate with others, not express yourself." The point Professor McCown makes is especially telling: even in poems and short stories and plays Beloit students are supposed to be communicating. What does that mean? It means sharing with others-clearly-your point of view, your ideas, your organization, even your writer's tone of voice. Communication implies that there's a community, of writers and readers. You yourself may think your ideas are brilliant, so brilliant that no one (including your professors) can truly understand them. But to persist in that view is to produce a regular schedule of first-draft cloudiness. The opposite tack is to become so frightened of your readers that you develop writer's block. Communicators take a middle view: they write to please themselves and to meet their own relevant standards, but they know there's little point unless they can make themselves clear to readers. Good writers are good sharers. 2. Courtesy. Think of writing as helping an elderly person across the street. Think courtesy. What does writing with courtesy mean? It means using simple language where possible, giving an up front overview in the early paragraphs, letting readers know when there's about to be a major transition from one phrase of your subject to another. It means writing a rough draft early enough that you can put in the drawer and think about it for a while before you return to it. It means trying out your papers on others (students and professors alike) so that they can help you identify the sections that are too vague or too short-or too long. 3. Liveliness. Although there's an unspoken rule that academic writing needs to be dreary, it doesn't have to be. A short story once began, "The last camel died at noon." That's lively. Why? Readers want to know how many camels there were, what they died of, what camel-riders are going to do now. Most academic writing doesn't consist of short stories. Still, you can always begin a paper with the following: "What do images of Teddy Roosevelt and sickle-cell anemia have in common? According to one theory, they're both made possible by replicators." That's also lively. What is a replicator, and how on earth could a replicator join Roosevelt and sickle-cell anemia? But don't make liveliness your first goal; make it a byproduct of other goals. If you aren't careful, you'll be trying to be lively above all; then you'll start writing to impress, rather than to inform. 4. Clarity. The awful truth is that many students will write in hopes of saying little that's clear. Being clear is risky. "If I'm too clear, then my professor may actually understand, perfectly well, what I believe. Suppose she disagrees with me? Better to keep it all a little muddy." Now no student has ever said it in those precise words. But those words reflect a common attitude. What does clarity mean? It means having a clearly identifiable (even an explicitly announced) framing idea; preferring short words to long ones; showing courtesy to readers; making every word count; above all, wanting your readers to know exactly what you mean-even welcoming some of their disagreement. These are all matters of mental attitude. You may think you already have these attitudes. If you don't (and many student writers don't), then there's no magic formula for acquiring them. You can always say and over and over: "I am a communicator; I shall be courteous to my readers; I shall be lively; I will be clear." But such repetitions probably won't succeed. Still, if you combine these attitudes with disciplined technique, then the attitudes will not only help you with the technique; the technique will help you get the attitudes. Good writing is a matter of noble mind-sets and constant practice.
Some Matters of Technique 1. The Active Voice Some writers think the active voice is the most important technique in writing. They think you can do more to improve your writing by using the active voice than by any other step you can take. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It isn't, for two reasons: First, many writers don't know what the active voice means. In grammatical terms it refers to the type of expression. Is the subject of the sentence acting? If so, then the voice is active. Is the subject of the sentence being acted upon? If so, then the voice is passive. Joe bought three pineapples (Active Voice: "Joe" is acting-buying). Three pineapples were bought by Joe (Passive Voice: The "pineapples" are being acted upon-getting purchased). Second, even writers who know what the passive voice means have trouble using it. Why? Well, it's because it takes courage to use the active voice. And it's easy to evade its demands. In the nineteenth century many immigrants were admitted to North America from Ireland. This sentence is partly cloudy at best. Who admitted all these Irish? The sentence evades this question. The writer doesn't have to know much. The writer doesn't have to deal with questions of policy changes, politicians, economic pressures. No one is doing anything. The abstract immigrants are just waiting around (where?) for admission. It's much easier, much less trouble, just to use the vague passive voice. But the writer gets a phony short-term gain at the expense of a real long-term loss. Writers who use the passive voice most of the time become sloppy thinkers. They don't have to think in clear pictures. They don't have to look up facts about who's responsible for what. They sacrifice their writing to laziness and mud. Another result of the passive voice is wordiness; how many times do you find headline writers, who must pack a lot of meaning into few words, saying, "Tax hike pushed by Clinton"? Almost never. Professor Steven Wright puts it this way: "Joe kicked the ball contains 3 bits of information (Joe, kicked, ball) in four words; while The ball was kicked provides only two bits of information in four words. A passive construction says less with as many (or more) words." Almost as bad as many passive sentences are lots of sentences with state-of-being verbs (such as "is" or "was"). Emily Chamlee-Wright states: "Avoid broad empty sentences like, 'Free trade is one of the most important issues of our time.' Instead, say something of relevance. For example, 'US trade restrictions are stifling economic growth.'" Please note that the first sentence uses a state-being-verb; the second one uses the active voice ("are stifling"). If passive sentences are a cheap way to avoid fixing responsibility, state-of-being sentences are a cheap way to evade expressing the substantive and concrete. Here's a much longer example of how the passive voice leads to a a cloudy picture, but how the active voice releases a much sharper signal: When Wal-Mart comes to a small town there is usually a clashing of cultures. Typically, a rush of optimism by the city or town government-flattered by the prospect of rubbing shoulders with a "big time" company-is countered by anti-Wal-Mart sentiment from an opposition group. This latter group generally argues that the Wal-Mart culture is a threat to the small town ethos and that it will destroy the local economy. Such tension has infected many communities and led to much discussion in the United States about the enormous growing commercial empire known as Wal-Mart. Now worth $20 billion, the company has 2,265 stores scattered across all fifty states, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China and Indonesia. This passage is clear writing, but it could become more lucid and lively with active verbs to transform the first two sentences: A new Wal-Mart in a small town sparks a clash of cultures. A "big time" company flatters government officials, who accordingly rush to an optimistic endorsement of Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, opposition groups insist that Wal-Mart means the end of Mr. Daniel's local five-and-dime store, and the end of neighborly values in general. Note how the vivid active verbs ("sparks," "flatters," and "insist") commit the writer to clearer, more concise and more picturesque language. If you yourself make sure you employ such verbs in nearly every sentence, your writing will become more appealing and informative almost immediately. 2. The Simple Word There's an unspoken agreement that academic writing must use long, complex words. It's a pretty good agreement; unfortunately, it isn't an excellent one. To be sure, in college you're learning complicated concepts: ethnocentrism, penaplanes, post-modernism. But there's a false notion that everything complicated must be communicated in long, involved words. Emily Dickinson once wrote: A word is dead I say There's but one word of more than one syllable ("begins"). Yet all these simple words say something profound about how thoughtless words can hurt feelings that stay bruised for a long time. There's nothing wrong with long words-many educated persons properly use "egregious" for "bad"-but there is something wrong with the idea that you must have them in order to explain something complicated or say something deep. Here's an example of how dependency on long words can lead to discourteous writing; it's from the concluding paragraph of an otherwise a fine essay: Repression, domestication, oppression, constraint, conflict: Plagued by the dominant forces of male supremacy in the 1950s, the woman fulfills her traditional role inside the happy household of America's suburbia. The first Sexual Revolution and the Women's Liberation movement of the 1960s and early 1970s detaches the woman from the feminine mystique and the conventional sexual morality of the 1950s. The woman explodes into the world of modern sexual freedoms, aided by advancing technology and emerging autonomy. This writing, with its big words, sounds impressive; but, if the goal is to maximize clarity for the reader, it makes less sense than it ought to. Here's a revision with much simpler language: Burdened by cooking Kraft's macaroni, cleaning furniture with Pledge and wiping runny noses with Kleenexes from the menacing new giant-sized boxes, the American woman of the 1950s did what husbands expected her to do and tried to be happy about it. In the 1960s and 70s, though, she left the kitchen (and sometimes the husband and even the kids) and moved to a free-sex commune in San Francisco or Vermont, or perhaps to New York City to become an editor at Random House. The writer probably needs to caution readers that this description is a stereotype. But even as a stereotype its simplicity is clearer than the fuzz-buzz words ("repression," "emerging autonomy," etc.) of the original. 3. The Positive Emphasis Avoid "not." This statement may seem like a silly rule; there's little need to spend much time on it. But writers who spend too much time saying what something isn't don't get around to saying what it is. In other words, emphasizing the negative is another one of those addictions-like the passive voice and the "impressive" vocabulary-that bad writers must wean themselves from if they're to become good writers. Example: Survival in modern day has come to require an element of self-centeredness within social interaction. It is this contradictory combination that makes me-ism sound so negative. Self-concern is not a bad characteristic until concern for others is completely abandoned, but United States culture and society has yet to reach that point. Americans still offer community service; people still care enough about each other to help those in need and be a friend. To be completely me-ist would require a total abandonment of any social skills or desires to have such. That is obviously not where society stands. The writing here is somewhat clear, but it's compromised by a a stress on the negative, especially in the third sentence and in the last one. Here's a more positive revision-with nary a "not" to confuse matters: Modern-day survival requires both self-centeredness and some concern for others. Unless it means a total betrayal of other people, a concern for oneself (a form of me-ism) is actually good . Because Americans still offer plenty of community service to those in need, there is little basis for worry that me-ism will led to a total decline in social values.
Readers are busy people (especially readers who are also professors!). Courteous writers won't waste their time. That means eliminating every needless word. An easy way to follow this practice is to use the active voice, for an active verb (where the subject is acting) generally means fewer words are necessary. But the rest of it involves taking a knife to flab. We are, alas, back to another addiction. Wrapping your prose in a morass of needless words is another strategy by which bad writers try to avoid saying anything clearly. They think the sheer verbiage will seem profound and learned. In fact, they're sinking what little they might have to say beneath a freight of unnecessary language. Here's an example, in a paragraph about an automobile navigation system: Map retrieval is another important detail in the production of the system. As the car is traveling the map has to keep up with the vehicle. This is very hard because the new images that are about to be shown have to be stored in the memory of the computer, which is not big in the first place. To reduce the time of retrieving the images, the engineers put neighboring features very close by on the disc. The average time of retrieval is about ten seconds. Here's the revision; please notice that the passage acquires economy because of, among other things, active verbs and the elimination of negatives: Map retrieval, another important detail of the system, features a map which has to keep up with the traveling vehicle. Because the new images must be stored in a computer with a small memory, engineers put neighboring features close by on the disc. Thus they reduce the average time of the retrieval to about ten seconds. This passage, less wordy, is more comprehensible. 5. The Coordinate Form A poll of disgruntled students of grammar might reveal that the most boring moment in high school English was the section on parallel construction. Yet a well-placed use of parallel construction-or coordinate form-is one of the most vital ways by which you can make your writing more persuasive. Coordinate things are working in tandem towards the same end; they are all pulling on the same cord in the same direction. As such, they should be expressed, as coordinate things, in coordinate form. If you express the first one in the adjective-noun form, express the others that way too. You may notice that this whole section employs the Coordinate Form (The Active Voice, The Simple Word, The Positive Emphasis, and so on). When you use it, the elegance of your organization improves, your readers are better-informed, your content becomes easier to remember, and your style becomes more convincing. Example (Before and After): Since 1971 Canada has had a universal comprehensive coverage under a single publicly-administered health insurance program in each province. The Canada Health Act, in 1984, outlined the criteria which provincial health insurance plans must meet in order to be eligible for federal block grants. First, they must enroll virtually everyone in the province, and eliminate basically all out-of-pocket costs for covered services. Second, benefits must be portable from province to province. In other words, if you are from Quebec and get sick in British Columbia you must be covered. Third, the provincial program must cover all medically necessary services. The federal government has defined this requirement no further, but all of the provincial governments have enacted comprehensive acute care coverage. There is a variability, however, among the provinces in coverage of long-term care, dental services, prescription drug and eyeglasses. Fourth, the program must be administered through a public, non-profit agency. Here's the "After" (Coordinate Construction) paragraph: Since 1971 Canada has had a universal comprehensive coverage under a single publicly-administered health insurance program in each province. The Canada Health Act, in 1984, outlined the four criteria which provincial health insurance plans must meet in order to be eligible for federal block grants: -Universal Coverage. The plans must enroll virtually everyone in the province, and eliminate basically all out-of-pocket costs for covered services. The use of Coordinate Construction, complete with bullets down the page, makes the writer seem better-organized and helps the reader remember key features. 6. The Explicit Paragraph Nearly every paragraph is doing one of two things, or a combination of them: explaining a process or enumerating examples. A good paragraph also makes one central point or exemplifies one central concept only. The key is to be explicit-up-front-with what a particular paragraph is doing. If the paragraph is explaining, then announce what it is explaining and the overall direction of the sequence. If it is enumerating, then state at the outset how the examples are relevant to what you want to argue. In a sense paragraphs are sentences writ large: Jill and Pat moved Jill's great-grandmother's coffee mugs; some tree ornaments brought back from England in the 1870s by Pat's great-great uncle (who was in the merchant marines; and a roll-top writer's desk rumored to have been used once by Thomas Edison. (This is an enumerative sentence: it provides examples of the antiques Jill and Pat moved into their new apartment.). Bob and Will first plunged the red rubber ball and handlebars into the opening at the top of the peppermint-colored stick, then they attached the pedal and springs to the bottom of the stick. (This is an explanatory sentence: it shows the process by which Bob and Will assembled a pogo stick.) Here is an example of a paragraph that tries to both explain and enumerate; let's see how effective it is: In the Grand Prix the first car across the checkered flag is the champion. The first one across has endured and prevailed over the others. Only the first across is the best. These are facts. The problem arises when one tries to use this formula to predict who is going to win the next Grand Prix. This theory works perfectly in explaining the process that each driver had to go through in order to win, but it just cannot be applied to predict who is going to win it in the future. What it comes down to is that it is known what it took for the previous winners to excel in the Grand Prix; but it is not known exactly which skills, strategies or other elements are needed to win the next one. The theory of evolution is similar to the theory of car racing. It says a lot, but falls short when it needs to be applied for future predictions. For instance, one would generally assume that a car with a faster top speed would always win, but that is not the case. A whole team of mechanics needs to modify each car to the conditions of a specific track on a specific day, and the best adapted cars-evolved, if I may-succeed. The factors are innumerable. This is not only true for Grand Prix cars but also for just about everything that is anything today. The theory of evolution can be applied to explain why different characteristics have been favored by natural selection and therefore have been passed down. The success or failure of this paragraph depends partly on the techniques already discussed, such as the active voice, concise language, and positive emphasis. A revision of the paragraph ought to improve it by adding these things. Notice that the writer wants to enumerate an example (The Grand Prix Auto Race) and explain a process (Evolution); the writer wants his enumeration to be explanatory. How effective is this strategy? Consider the following revision, in which the explicit framing idea of the paragraph appears first for the reader's courtesy: Predicting an evolutionary outcome is a chancy as predicting a car race. In the Grand Prix the first car across the checkered flag is the champion. The first one across has endured and prevailed over the others. Only the first across is the best. These are facts. But can these facts predict who is going to win the next Grand Prix? The answer is no. No one can predict exactly which skills, strategies or other elements are needed to win the next one. One would generally assume that a car with a faster top speed would always win, but in fact a whole team of mechanics needs to modify each car to the conditions of a specific track on a specific day, and only the best adapted cars succeed. Similarly, if I were able to inspect competing bacteria millions of years ago, I could never predict which ones would still be reproducing millions of years later, for evolution is rarely a matter of just speed or size or shape. It's a matter of temporary-and unpredictable-adaptation to local environments. The revision is a more successful paragraph for three reasons: it maps is central idea at the beginning, it maps is central idea at the beginning, it's more concise and positive than the original, and it enumerates the example (The Grand Prix) fully before explaining the parallel with the theory of evolution. In the original the writer cites the Grand Prix, mentions evolution and then goes back to the Grand Prix before vaguely getting back to evolution again. It's better to enumerate your example fully before using it to explain a process. Finally, what about paragraph length? That's partly a matter of the eye. Paragraphs that are too short (only two or three sentences) will look to your readers like a grocery list-a series of items rather than well-developed thought. Yet a paragraph which takes up a page-and-a-half will be daunting to your readers; they'll think they're being asked to ingest a whole orange, skin and all. The middle way between the grocery list and the whole orange is better. 7. The Coherent Introduction Professor Steven Wright (English) stresses the importance of "coherence" as an effective writing strategy. He points out that there's a simple test for coherence: Can the sentences and paragraphs in a paper be put into only one justifiable order, only one sensible sequence? If so, then the paper has coherence. "The development of a paper," he continues, "is controlled by an idea; the order of the presentation. . .is itself significant; the writer is doing more than just following the points from a list in the first paragraph." Professor Wright's notion of coherence is especially useful in the composition of introductory paragraphs. Here's one, from a paper on Canadian foreign policy: There are nearly two hundred nations crowding the Earth today. With that many different factions and a rapidly increasing market for new technology, food products and weapons, it is now even more imperative for nations to use their diplomatic abilities to the best that they possibly can. Countries can no longer rely totally on brute strength and now must have a strong diplomatic core to forge a lasting market for trading internationally and to avoid the devastating continental wars that this century has witnessed. How is Canada surviving in this latter part of the century? What is Canada's foreign policy toward other nations? This paper will attempt to answer these questions and show that Canada is, diplomatically, one of the strongest nations in the world. This passage is a strong introduction, but it doesn't demonstrate maximal coherence. For one thing, it isn't a good "mapping paragraph" (like "framing idea," this is another of Professor's Wright's useful terms). This opening paragraph doesn't supply readers with a road map for what is in fact a reasonably involved journey (the paper contains a lot of information to be digested). Here's a revision, which has more coherence and mapping: Because there are nearly two hundred countries crowding the Earth today, because new technologies occur constantly, because both factions and markets are rapidly changing, nations like Canada must rely on diplomacy and persuasion. Brute force alone won't suffice any longer in such a fragmented and varied world. This paper will explore how strong Canadian diplomacy has become. It will investigate the country's role in international organizations, both diplomatic and trade. It will look at Canadian policy-and effectiveness-regarding foreign aid. It will view how Canada tries to manage its image in the eyes of other nations. Finally, it will investigate the evolution of Canadian foreign policy as it has emerged from dependency upon Great Britain and other powers. This sequence seems justified because any country's behavior in world organizations and its foreign-aid conduct are quick and useful introductions to its foreign policy. Whether or not a country cares how it is viewed abroad is a good measure of how subtle is its diplomacy. And readers should explore the history of a country's foreign policy only after they have a good survey of its present conduct. That's why the history comes last. This introduction cuts down on both the elevated language and the open-ended questions of the original. Instead, it spends more time mapping the territory to come (previewing the entire paper) and justifying the coherence of the sequence. 8. The Controlled Tone Academic writing should avoid shouting and preaching. It should convey a tone of reasoned argument rather than doctrinaire teaching. Academic writing may express conviction about the truth, but the mode of persuasion is analysis and clarity, not faith and jargon. Tone can lose control in hard-to-detect ways. Here's an otherwise excellent passage (on the Biblical David) which suffers nonetheless from a bit too much certainty and a bit too much volume: Heym was not simply guilty of shoddy scholarship, though. Unlike most people who begin adding to the story of David, he was not just trying to make sense of it or to fill in the gaps which the Biblical account leaves. Rather he was purposely using David to condemn his enemies in the Leninist state (Hutchinson 132). That the Soviet censors needed a rebuke is doubtless. However, as Stalin is brought low, David is dragged through the mud. Infinitely worse, as Heym gets caught up in the possibilities of the parallels he has drawn, he begins to blaspheme his Creator. As Peter Hutchinson points out (regrettably in a seemingly congratulatory manner) there comes a point in the novel where the "reader will be tempted to substitute 'the Party' for 'the Lord,' producing the well-known argument of how the Party is always right." (136) The party wasn't; God is. To insinuate otherwise, as Heym has done, is a grave error. In a revision of this fine paper the author gains credibility by backgrounding his own convictions in favor of foregrounding the evidence for them: Others who set forth to retell and expand on David's life go to the other side of the truth in that they try to deny all the Bible says about David's virtues. Perhaps the most famous example of this approach is Stefan Heym's The King David Report. Peter Hutchinson notes that the "level of the novel might best be termed 'political' and the principal parallel that Heym draws is obviously with the Soviet Union" (133). This is an example of a man manipulating the Bible so as to make it say what he wants it to say. At the time he wrote this novel, Heym lived in East Germany and was having trouble getting much of his work published due to the strict government censorship. Searching for a way to vent his frustration at being constantly stifled, Heym looked to tenth century B.C. Jerusalem under King David. . . .the David of the novel. . .is a perverted power-hungry despot lacking all moral fortitude (another parallel between communist leaders and David). The Stefan Heym of this passage is more forgivable (he was prompted by censorship), but that he manipulated the Biblical account is more believable. Proving that thesis is more crucial than judging (or condemning) Heym's character. Academic writing relies on evidence more than on homiletics. 9. The Single Design No matter how long and complicated, an academic paper must be governed by a single, overall design. It may have many parts, but only one plan. If you as writer can't grasp the whole, how do you expect your readers to do so? Let's examine design matters more specifically: -First, you should avoid the Black Forest. This is a paper in which the details overcome any general sense of direction. Facts and figures abound, but a reader finds it hard to discover their relevance to a governing idea. Black Forest papers occur for two reasons: because some writers are more comfortable with details than with direction, and because writers have done the research or the reading but have started too late to find their compass. -Second, you should avoid Twenty-Five-Sentences-Looking-for-a-Thesis. This is one of the most common types of bad student essays. It consists of twenty-five (or thirty-six or forty-four) abstract sentences, using long words and passive verbs and abundant padding. Any one of these sentences might be a framing idea for a single essay. Literature is an imitation of life. It is a method by which individual authors express their unique visions. Literature also has great social significance. One can learn a lot about society by readings poems and novels and plays. Literature finally is a world of its own, with its own rules, such as the formula for an Italian Sonnet. In this five-page paper we shall explore these ideas about literature. This is a classical Twenty-Five-Sentences-Looking-for-a-Thesis opening. Every one of these ideas about literature deserves a well-honed essay. You could write for a long time about how a rhymed poem, which doesn't seem to be anything like life as we know it on a dull and daily basis, still represents some phase of life as we experience it. You could write a long time on literature as sociological evidence, or as a means of individual self-expression. For the writer to say that all these concepts will be covered in a single five-page paper means that the paper is going to be skimpy, airy, abstract-and probably meaningless. Good writers settle on a single, well-defined framing idea, and then begin to dig. This is the great secret of design: a good student essay may say many things, but those many things are said about only ONE big thing (the controlling central idea). A good writer would pick ONE aspect of literature and write, in depth, about that. Here's a good test. Suppose your roommate asked you how that paper on ethnography is coming and what you've said. If you answer, "Oh, I talk a lot about the problems of taking one cultural world-view into an examination of another one-stuff like that," then that reply is a bad sign. But if you say, "I argue that having one's own cultural world-view is necessary before you can examine any other," then that sounds much more like a specific framing idea. Your first reply was merely an expression of the subject matter; your second was an expression of your framing idea. The fuzzier you are with your roommate, the more likely it is you should do another draft. Professor Emeritus Scott Crom (Philosophy) has a related hint about focusing and unifying your paper: "Give your paper an appropriate title, not only for tidiness or beauty but also (a) because the act of thinking of a title may help remind you that the paper should have a central theme, and (b) so that the reader can know what to look for." -Third, avoid the Once-Upon-a-Time Paper. This paper is all narrative summary-all story-without any interpretation. It's a close relative of the Black Forest paper, but at least it has a surface clarity that the Black Forest may lack. Still, it's not much better because it recites facts without discussing your opinion of them: whether they're accurate, relevant, or important. -Fourth, be comprehensive: try to make your paper conform to certain demands that any careful reader has a right to make of you. They include *Justified Importance. Why is this topic important or pertinent? Why did you choose it (in some cases, of course, because it was assigned!)? *Key Terms. What are the key words in your paper? How are you using these words? When you use the word "ethnocentrism" or "uncertainty principle" or "artistic perspective" in the course of the paper, what do you mean by them, exactly? *Controlling Idea. What is your framing idea? What is the controlling magnet to which all the other filings (facts, figures, examples) are attracted, to which they must return in the end? This framing idea should be explicit; readers must never need to guess it-they should never have to search for their map, for you must provide it.
*Opposing Ideas. Your framing idea doesn't exist in a vacuum. Chances are that it's been opposed by other thinkers and writers at one time or another. Although your research may not have revealed this opposition, you still have an obligation to argue against yourself. It's the best way to sharpen your own thinking. Try to find reasons why you're wrong. Plato's philosophy is dramatic and relevant, while Aristotle's is encyclopedic and dry. Suppose that were your framing idea. Try to discover why Aristotle has a lot to say about your daily living, why his philosophy is pertinent to such matters as persuasion, politics and beauty. You may not change your mind, but at least you may start to get acquainted with those who disagree-and your own appreciation of Plato will be better-honed for having been tested. You should anticipate opposition, express it, and answer it-all within the boundaries of your paper. To quote Scott Crom, "Imagine that Socrates is looking over your shoulder and giving you as hard a time as possible." Such tension, if well-managed, will also add to the liveliness of your work. Your professor might even become entertained! *Appropriate Conclusion. A paper should have an ending that is clearly demarcated by more than just blank space after you've finished writing. Conclusions are tricky, though. They can't be just a re-hash of what you've already said, but neither can they draw implications that you can't explore fully. The best conclusions will re-state main ideas, but with different words and sometimes with a loftier tone. If they do raise implications for further study, the best conclusions will state openly that these implications are beyond the scope of the present essay and would require a separate investigation. -Fifth, think Outline. Nothing seems more boring than an outline, but nothing is better insurance that your essay is well-designed. Only two kinds of outlines really work well: *The Coordinated Outline *The Paragraph Outline The Coordinated Outline is a big-picture overview. It uses coordinate form (or parallel expression). Here's a typical one:
Section 1: The Decision as Seen by Japanese Historians Section 2: The Decision as Seen by American Historians Section 3: The Decision as Seen by Anti-Roosevelt Conspiracy Theorists Section 4: The Decision as Seen by Me Framing Idea: Both Japanese historians and American historians (including the conspiracy-theorists) are unreliable in their understanding of the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor. The Japanese historians are wracked by a collective sense of remorse; the American historians lack insight into the Japanese frame of mind; and the conspiracy-theorists are overly-influenced by a right-wing paranoia. That's a typical Coordinated Outline. It supplies the big picture section-by-section in elegant parallel construction. But notice that the writer includes a mapping statement (or framing idea) in order to keep the outline from becoming too remote and abstract from the actual paper. A Paragraph Outline is simply a one-sentence summary of each paragraph. It lacks the big picture of the Coordinated Outline, but it has the virtue of making sure that each paragraph has a specific function in the course of laying out your paper. Some writers have the idea that they must first have an outline. Then and only then can they write the paper. That's a misconception. Although some writers do better by planning first, others do well by just writing. You can use an outline to plan a paper, but you can also use one to test whether a paper is well planned, or if it's driven by a single, well-defined framing idea. You can use outlines at any point in the composition of the paper. *** President Calvin Coolidge was once asked what a minister's sermon was about. Coolidge is said to have replied, "Sin. He was against it." This last point (#8) about Design, if you use it carefully, will keep you from such comic fuzziness as President Coolidge's. It will prevent your replying, when someone asks you what your political science paper says, "Politics. I tried to say something smart about them." In a sense all the points in this section are detoxification points. They suggest that you break yourself, if necessary, of bad habits which lead to muddled expression, sloppy organization, and evasive essays. If you aren't writing well, it probably means you aren't thinking hard; but even if you're thinking hard, writing poorly means you won't get any credit for it. Some Common Mechanical Errors *"Every error obstructs the true purpose of expository prose, which is 'ex-pose' meaning-to place it outside in the open, in the clear light of day, for all (particularly the instructor) to see." -Professor David Vessey (Philosophy) A manual such as this one should discuss at length only some of the more common and serious mechanical errors. One of the best short guides to better grammar and mechanics is that of Professor Lisa Haines Wright (English). You can find it ("Lisa's List") at the end of this guide. It is complete with a systematic numbering system so that professors and students alike can use it and be on the same page. Individual Beloit professors may well add further to the list. In this section, for the sake of giving Beloit professors and students a common vocabulary, a certain nickname will be given to each error. The following discussion will treat rather comically what is a serious subject. The comedy is supposed to make learning grammar and mechanics more fun, and easier to retain. But serious mechanical problems are no giggling matter. In a sense you can avoid two of the most serious errors (two that will be especially embarrassing to you) if you simply know what a sentence is. A sentence is a unit of thought which, having a subject and a predicate, makes complete sense standing alone. This is a tricky business. For example, "Wilbur wept" is a sentence, while "Going to the park on a fine summer's day and chasing the monarch butterflies and buying the ice-cream they sell down by the choo-choo train" is a sentence fragment. It doesn't seem fair that so much verbiage shouldn't count as a sentence while only two words do count. But the key is a subject and a predicate: Wilbur is the subject, and his weeping is the predicate (the subject's action or condition-"Wilbur is sick" would also qualify as a sentence). Regrettably the lovely day in the park lacks a subject; the mere placement of the words "I am" before the fragment would turn it into a sentence, for then it would have a subject ("I"). The first and second major errors you can escape simply by knowing that a sentence requires both a main subject and a main predicate. -The Crash. If a meteor hurls to earth, it will not survive intact. Similarly a sentence broken in two by collision with an earth-bound, sloppy writer will become a sentence that crashes into fragments. Again, "I am" is technically a sentence but uninformative, while "Going to the park on a fine summer's day and chasing the monarch butterflies and buying the ice-cream they sell down by the choo-choo train" is rather informative but not a sentence. They represent a fractured meteor. Unlike a meteor, though, they can be reassembled intact; just combine them. -The Runaway. "Charles Darwin was born in 1809 Abraham Lincoln was born on the same day in the same year." Whoa! There are two sentences: the one about Darwin, and the one about Lincoln. A period is needed after "1809" or perhaps a comma, followed by a connecting word such as "while." Don't think you can put a comma after 1809; using a mere comma to separate two sentences is like putting up particle board to stop an elephant. Only a period or a semicolon will qualify as appropriate regulation. -The Worm. Those worm-shaped marks which denote possession or ownership are called apostrophes. If the owner or possessor is singular in form, use a worm and an s; if plural, use just the worm. Smith's car That's about all you need to know, except that *If the owner or possessor is a one-syllable word which ends in s, then use the worm and another s, as in "James's car." *If the owner or possessor is not a person but a thing, then use an s, but no worm, as in "its tempo" (not "it's," which means "it is"). -The Pajamas. Grouch Marx once said he shot an elephant while in his pajamas; what the elephant was doing in his pajamas he'll never know. Of course Groucho Marx meant that while in his pajamas he shot an elephant. The joke is that the first time around the modifier ("while in his pajamas") is misplaced and therefore misused. Beware of sentences beginning with "ing" words, as in "Studying insects for most of my undergraduate career, hymenoptera seem to function as a single organism, even if a colony is made up of tens of thousands." The hymenoptera (ants, wasps) have studied nothing, yet the modifier "studying" modifies them. Revise the sentence: "Studying insects for most of my undergraduate career, I am now prepared to say that hymenoptera seem to function as a single organism, etc." -The Bore. "The major theories of student development are all governed by some concept of psychology, and many of the theories are propounded by psychologists. Psychologists have studied human development both individually and collectively, and most have come to different conclusions. These different conclusions are based on different methods, in some cases, and they often lead scholars of student development into several bewildering problems." Notice that every one of these sentences contains a two-sentence set separated by "and." This sequence is a succession of loose sentences. Without a variety in your style (some short sentences, some longer ones, some sentences separated by "but" and others by "or," etc.) your style gets old fast. -The Floater. "When a state legislature has only one house, then there can be no checks and balances system to prevent a monopoly of legislative power. This quickly leads to corruption." Fine, but what does the "this" refer to, exactly-the single house, the monopoly, the power? Don't make readers guess; say so exactly. "This monopoly quickly leads to corruption." Pronouns like "this" shouldn't float free; they should always be anchored to some specific noun. Floating pronouns are a foe to clarity, because without anchors readers are left to roam.
Some Suggestions for Collaborative Editing At Beloit we emphasize working together; the fancier name for it is "collaborative learning." Here is an introduction to "collaborative editing." It works in the following way: Share a paper or part of a paper with someone-a roommate, a friend, even a professor or administrator- with whom you feel comfortable (though you might also want to consider the advice of Professors Andras and Mary Boros-Kazai: "have someone else-not necessarily a friend-read your writing, for a 'cold eye' is often helpful.") Although other persons may know little about the subject matter of your paper, they can certainly tell you when they don't understand something, when they think something needs to be plainer, and when they consider some explanation wordy. If you exchange papers with a colleague, you might print out two hard copies: one single-spaced in order to see as much of the argument as possible on a page, and one triple-spaced in order to have more room for revision work. This is the CASE Method of editing; as you'll eventually see from the language used, it's a little like playing Bingo: C stands for Clarity. If a concept is hard to understand, this difficulty must never be because of the writing in which it's explained. A stands for Accuracy. Only those knowledgeable in a given field can evaluate Accuracy. S stands for Simplicity. If a commoner or shorter word can be used, use it. E stands for Economy. Readers must never need to plough through excess words in order to grasp a point. Below is a piece of student prose, evaluated by the CASE method. There are no A (Accuracy) evaluations because here we'll assume that the reader knows little about the subject matter. Even so, the reader can still supply good advice about the writing: In drawing a critical comparison and contrast (E1) between Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, I choose (E2) to focus upon the characters of Puck and Prospero in their roles (E3) as "perception" dispensers (C1) to the other characters, as well as the place of perception itself within the plays. I will first deal with these issues from a humanistic perspective. Puck and Prospero are two characters who dole out perceptions to other characters for their own desired (E4) ends. Their main similarity lies in their fantastical ability to magically induce character changes (S1): Puck's "love juice" and Prospero's moralistically aimed wizardry (S2) with the help of Ariel accomplish this changing. However, a dissimilarity exists between the brands of magic favored to deliver perception by Puck and Prospero. Puck's magic is of a much darker and devilish variety. Puck is a prankster who enjoys a certain amusement in doing harm to those he manipulates. Prospero, rather, wishes to restore a moral propriety (as conceived by him) to his previous enemies, usually in a rather good-hearted manner (considering what he could do with his power). (C2) In humanistic terms (C3) Shakespeare uses the characters of Puck and Prospero to symbolize the unknowable forces which govern and direct our human fate, sometimes to a Puckish style of detriment or worse (C4), and sometimes to a Prosperian moral insight (S3). E1: "critical comparison and contrast." Everyone knows the writer is writing criticism, and comparison also includes contrast. Change to "comparison" only. E2: Change "I choose to focus" to "I will focus" E3: Delete "characters." All know they are characters. Delete "in their roles" as adding nothing. C1: "perception" dispensers. Too vague and new-fangled to be clear. People dispense pills, not perceptions. Change to the following: "I will focus on Puck and Prospero as they alter other characters' perceptions, and on the place of perception itself in their plays." E4: Delete "desired," because for most people their own ends are also their desired ends. S1: What is this "fantastical ability to magically induce character changes"? You mean "their ability to change other characters through magic." Keep it simple. S2: There you go again. Change "moralistically-aimed wizardry" to "Prospero's wizardry, aided by Ariel, to improve the morals of other characters." Sometimes it's better to add a few words than to say something clunky and vague. C2: "(considering what he could do with his power)" is vague. Spell out what he could do, if he wanted. C3: "In humanistic terms" is vague. Perhaps the professor knows what humanistic terms are, because that's been part of the course. But the professor wants to know if you know.
Some Advice for Professors In a writing manual such as this one-written for a college where students and professors have candid dialogue-it seems only fair to publish some advice to the professors who read your papers. The professors will still get the last word (see the next section), but you should know the sort of approaches professors may take when they actually sit down to mark your papers. 1: DON'T TRY TO MARK EVERYTHING. When you evaluate the work of an inexperienced student writer, pick out, each time, two or three major writing problems; focus on these. 2: CRITICIZE WITH AN EVEN TEMPER. If the ineffective writer becomes defensive, then good writing is no longer a simple necessity but a psychological burden. 3: BE ENCOURAGING. If you can find one, mark the student's best sentence and say, in effect, "if they'd all been this good, you wouldn't be in trouble." Then explain why that sentence is so good. 4: BE ANALYTICAL. If you can find one, mark the sentence which might have been the organizing focus of the entire paper and say, in effect, "if you'd built the whole essay around this one idea, you wouldn't be in such trouble." Then explain why. 5: BE EXPLICIT BUT FLEXIBLE. Although you don't want to stifle originality, many students will appreciate the structure of explicit, step-by-step directions for preparing your assignments; you might make the structure optional, though, especially for the more creative types of students. 6: PRACTICE PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. Before the assignment is due, use papers written for previous classes as models-in particular, use three models: one which does everything right, one which does some things right and one which does almost nothing right. 7: MAKE YOUR OWN STANDARDS CLEAR. It might be a good idea to distribute, early, a written statement of exactly what you will insist upon, in matters of form and substance, as meeting minimal standards; and to explain the statement in class.
Some Advice from Professors *On Plagiarism: "Be sure to give credit where credit is due. Presumably everyone knows that it is plagiarism to copy an article from an encyclopedia or other source and hand it in under your own name. It is also plagiarism to take over someone else's insights or felicitous language and try to pass them off as your own by tinkering with unimportant connectives or rearranging a few phrase." -Scott Crom (Philosophy) "How do we avoid plagiarism? Here are some suggestions. Develop your own approach to your paper. Don't rely on another author to dictate the organization of your report. If you adopt her/his organization, you might be tempted to adopt the sentence structure as well. And this practice can lead to plagiarism. I suggest that you (i) read about your subject, (ii) develop a reasonable outline, (iii) establish a set of important topics that you want to discuss in your paper, (iv) take notes from relevant articles, and (v) write those notes on an index card devoted to a particular topic. You'll end up with a bunch of note cards, each of which has ideas from 5 or 6 authors. You will then see connections among the ideas of a number of different authors; these new connections will allow you to express your ideas (and those of the authors) from a unique viewpoint, a viewpoint that requires a sentence structure and a vocabulary that differ from those of the original author(s). " -Carl Mendelson (Geology) *On Writing a Book Report: "Write a well-crafted and well-organized paper in which you critically evaluate your book. 'Critically evaluate' means that you should investigate both positive and negative aspects. . . .Concentrate on the following three major themes: 1. Content. [What is the book about? Does the author clearly explain the issues? Can the book be placed in a historical context? That is, do you know another book that has addressed a similar topic? If so, how does this book compare or contrast with that book?] 2. Authority. [What is the perspective of the author? Is she a scientist exploring the details of the chemistry of global warming? Does she have the appropriate credentials? Is he an environmental journalist with a significant knowledge of environmental politics? Is she a policy specialist trying to address the ethical dimensions of an environmental problem?] 3. Writing. [How effective is the book in communicating its message? Do you think the author has a political agenda? Does he use certain words for emotional impact? Does she try to be fair by presenting two or three sides of a particular argument? Has the author compromised his credibility by adopting a particular writing style?] -Carl Mendelson (Geology) *On Editing: "Never turn in a paper that has not been proofread. Using 'Spell-Checker' is not enough. Editing is a time-consuming process. Make certain that you leave enough time to proofread your paper at least 4 or 5 times. It is discourteous to expect others to catch (and forgive) your mistakes. Spelling and grammatical mistakes are simply not acceptable. Period. If you have trouble in this area, seek help immediately. The Learning Resource Center (x2572) are I are available for individual help." -Emily Chamlee-Wright (Economics) *On Weak Modifiers: "Avoid weak modifiers like 'very,' 'quite,' and definite.' They are a poor substitute for empirical evidence. Imagine the difference between one company's annual report which reads, 'Our profits were very high last quarter,' and another that reads, "our company's profits increased by 8% (for a total of $4,000,000) last quarter.' In which company would you want to invest?" -Emily Chamlee-Wright (Economics) *On Overblown Writing: "It is a mistake to think that your writing will be more exciting if you use a lot of overblown adjectives. For example, 'Democrats are absolutely idiotic if they think that these outrageous price controls on insurance premiums will reduce health care costs.' Rather than being exciting, this sentence is insulting and unpersuasive, as it substitutes analysis with empty rhetoric. You will never convince your audience if you shout at them." -Emily Chamlee-Wright (Economics) *** Learning often results from outright error; it rarely results from muddled confusion. If you will practice the precepts of writing clearly-of becoming bold and lucid even if you turn out to be wrong-you will quicken the pace of your education. There is no disgrace in being wrong but some glory in writing well. Go practice.
Grammar and Punctuation 1. COMMA USAGE 1a. You cannot link two independent clauses* with only a comma. To do so is to commit the error called a "comma splice." To correct a comma splice, you can make the two independent clauses into two separate sentences. OR you can use a semi-colon, instead of a comma. OR you can use a comma plus a coordinate conjunction. Coordinate conjunctions are: and, but, or/nor, and sometimes still, yet, so (if the two independent clauses connected by one of those latter three words are intimately linked). *A clause is a grammatical unit that has a subject and a verb. A dependent clause does have a subject and a verb. BUT it cannot stand on its own as a complete unit of thought, usually because it has been prefaced by a subordinating conjunction. For example: When John runs well. Here, the subordinating conjunction when tells us that this clause is an incomplete thought, only a part of some larger idea. A phrase is a grammatical unit that does not have a subject and a verb: into the wreck, for example--which is a simple prepositional phrase (a preposition and its object). While a phrase does not contain a subject and a verb, it might have a verbal. A verbal is a verb turned into a noun or an adjective. E.g.: Swimming several laps a day is good exercise. Here, a verbal phrase is the subject of the sentence. Here, the verbal --swimming-- is a gerund, which is a noun made by adding -ing to a verb. Another gerund: Knitting relaxes me. A gerund phrase: Ignoring others isolates one. I like to swim. Here, the verbal is the object of the verb "like." This verbal is an infinitive, which is a noun made by adding to + a verb. Another infinitive: to quit would be cowardly. Exhausted, John sat down. Here, a verbal is an adjective modifying the subject of the sentence ("John"). This kind of verbal is a participle, which is an adjective made by adding -ing or-ed to a verb. Here are two participial phrases: flaunting his new hair cut, welcoming the guests. 1b. "Run-on sentences" are errors, too--even worse than comma splices. A run-on sentence runs one independent clause into another one with no punctuation, not even a comma. (What is an independent clause? See 1a*.) To fix a run-on sentence, you can break the two independent clauses into two separate sentences. OR you can separate them with a semi-colon, instead of a comma. OR you can separate them with a comma plus a coordinate conjunction (and, but, or/nor, sometimes still, yet, so). 1c. Put a comma before a coordinate conjunction that links two independent clauses. Coordinate conjunctions are: and, but, or/nor, sometimes still, yet, so). (See #1a* if you don't know what an independent clause is.) John runs well, and he dances even better. 1d. Put a comma after an introductory word, phrase, or clause. Therefore, we simply can't agree with you. 1e. Put an interrupting word, phrase, or clause into a pair of commas (a comma both before and after the interrupter). We know the facts, though, and simply can't agree with you. 1f. Put a comma before a word, phrase, or clause that is loosely attached to the end of your sentence's main idea, such that it elaborates its main idea's sense but is not essential to it. I can't help liking him, though. 1g. Put a comma after the introduction to a direct* quotation. (Capitalize the first word of a direct quotation). The older waiter says, "We are of two different kinds" (Hemingway, "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" 290). *The examples above are direct quotations. I.e., I've put nothing between the reader and the older waiter. Direct quotation is dramatic in effect, establishing a sense of the source's unmediated voice. Indirect quotation, on the other hand, fits more smoothly into your own prose, making clear by its form (#1h) that you the writer stand between the reader and the person you quote. See #1h below. 1h. An indirect quotation is introduced by "that," which is NOT followed by a comma. Do not capitalize the first word of an indirect quotation. (Rules for direct quotation are different: see #1g.) Grieving, the major insists that "[a] man must not marry" (Hemingway, "In Another Country" 209). 1i. Put a comma between items (words, phrases, clauses) in a series. (A series consists of more than two things in a list. Pairs linked by a coordinate conjunction ought not be divided by a comma.) He talks while we eat, while we run, and even while we read. 1j. Avoid separating the second half of a compound verb from its subject with a comma. Indeed, a comma shouldn't separate the second half of any compound construction from its grammatical head. Flawed: Shakespeare shows us a man destroyed by jealousy, and makes us pity But okay: Shakespeare shows us a man destroyed by jealousy, the seeds of which Iago plants and cultivates, and makes us pity Iago's dupe. 2. SEMI-COLONS (;) Semi-colons COORDINATE ideas that are of equal importance. (Contrast colons, #3). Therefore, semi-colons should separate syntactical units that are of equal grammatical weight. For example, if you have an independent clause before the semi-colon, put an independent clause after it as well. (see #1f); if you wanted a very emphatic pause, however, you might use a dash (see #4 below). 3. COLONS (:) 3a. Colons SUBORDINATE one part of your sentence to another part, telling us that one part is more important than the other. (Contrast semi-colons, #1). For example, use a colon (not a semi-colon) when the second part of your sentence offers a particular illustration of a generalization given in the first part of your sentence--or vice versa. Darkness does not always suggest fear and dissolution: in Spenser's "Epithalamion," for example, the lovers welcome it. 3b. Because colons do NOT link ideas that are of equal importance, you don't have to be sure that the ideas on either side of a colon are expressed in units of equal grammatical weight: for example, you might have an independent clause on one side of a colon and only a series of words or phrases on the other. (Not true of semi-colons: #2.) My father will eat only two vegetables: corn and tomatoes. Three things annoy her during debate: a tendency toward hasty generalization; a refusal to consider the consequences of a position; and a lack of clear and specific definition. Note the semi-colons above are rightly used in Example #2 above: they separate three units of equal grammatical weight--here, three noun phrases. When a series follows a colon, you do not always have to use semi-colons to separate the items. You might use commas instead, if each item is brief enough to allow the reader to move to the next without a pause. (In Example #2 above, commas would be fine.) To avoid confusion, however, do use semi-colons to separate the items in a series if any of them contains a comma within itself. 3c. A colon marks a very strong break. After a colon and what follows it, you must begin a new sentence. 4. DASHES (--): 4a. A typed dash consists of two unspaced hyphens--no spaces before, between, or after (as in this sentence). 4b. Usage: a dash indicates an abrupt break or pause. A dash's break or pause is more decisive than that indicated by a comma (#1). Do NOT over-use dashes: too many abrupt, unspecific pauses suggest that you have not clearly established the connections among your ideas. If you over-use the dash, you diminish its emphatic effect. Save dashes for cases when you rally want both to connect an idea to your sentence and also to give it special emphasis. 4c. The material inserted between dashes into a sentence or attached by a dash to the end of a sentence is not parenthetic in meaning: parentheses set off material that is dispensable without damage to your sense, whereas dashes mark material that is indispensable. But the material in dashes or after a dash is formally parenthetic: i.e., such material is isolated from the grammar of the rest of your sentence, and you don't have to make it fit grammatically into the rest of the sentence. In fact, when you have used two dashes to isolate material within a sentence, you should be able to delete that material and still have a grammatical sentence--even if its sense would be incomplete. The old sometimes try to survive by cutting corners--eating less, giving up small pleasures, doing without warm clothes--and pay the price of ill health and a shortened life. 4d. When you are inserting material into a sentence--a modifying phrase, e.g.--mark its opening and close with EITHER a pair of commas (if it fits smoothly into the grammar of your sentence and needs only a slight pause before and after it) OR a pair of dashes (if it interrupts the grammar of your sentence and needs an abrupt pause before and after it). Do NOT use a comma at the beginning of such and insertion and then a dash at the close--or a dash at the beginning and then a comma at the close. Make your decision about the correct mark, and then be consistent. 5. PARENTHESES ( ) set off material that could be omitted without any damage to the sense of your argument. BEWARE IF PARENTHESES in a formal analytic essay. Correct usage requires that you put nothing into parentheses that could not be omitted without weakening you argument. And in a formal essay, anything that COULD be omitted probably SHOULD be omitted--not put into ( ). Essential things--e.g., evidence, analysis, interpretation--should be fully integrated into official sentences, not casually appended as parenthetical remarks. 6. HYPHENS - are used to turn two (or more) words into a single adjective. a) sixteenth-century England BUT b) England in the sixteenth century (Item b doesn't have a one-word adjective: "century" is a noun, modified by an adjective, "sixteenth".) 7. Use APOSTROPHES (') to turn nouns into possessive adjectives: 7a. Singular possessive: the man's hat (singular noun + apostrophe + -s). 7b. Plural possessive: the horses' race (plural noun + apostrophe). 7c. Possessive of a plural noun not ending in -s: women's (the plural noun + apostrophe + -s). 7d. Possessive pronouns do NOT need apostrophes: its, hers, whose, theirs. 8. PUNCTUATING TITLES: 8a. UNDERLINE or ITALICIZE the titles of whole things and big things: books, plays, films, long narrative poems, television series, and albums or CD's, as well as the names of journals and newspapers. Examples: Emma or Emma (novel) Paradise Lost or Paradise Lost (long 8b. Put "QUOTATION MARKS" around the titles of parts of things and short things: essays, articles, chapters of books, stories, short poems, songs, and specific episodes of television series. 8c. Put no punctuation (no italics or underlining, no quotation marks around your own 9. DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS ( " ") should be used only to indicate actual quotation from a specific text, written or spoken. Whenever you use " " marks, a specific reference must be cited and fully documented. 10a. SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS ( ' ' ) should be used when you want to 'prioritize' or 'privilege' a word or phrase. 10b. Don't use single quotation marks to indicate that your choice of words is in some way sloppy (inaccurate, vague, or trite, e.g.). Rather, find the best word you can, and let it stand bravely unqualified. 10c. SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS ( ' ' ) are also used to mark quotation-within-quotation. 11. Avoid splitting infinitive phrases (to + a verb: to go, to see). 12. The modifier ONLY has to stand right next to the thing it modifies: Flawed: To engage his creative interest, Chaucer only desires Why? The first sentence says that Chaucer only DESIRES vitality, when in fact he also admires and possesses vitality: the sentence isn't true. The corrected sentence says what the writer means: that Chaucer desires only vitality--no other quality. Here, "only" rightly modifies "vitality," not "desires": misplacing it creates inaccuracy. 13. AVOID FAULTY PARALLELISM: 13a. A grammatical parallel linking two elements has an analytic and expressive purpose: it marks and emphasizes both some relation and some distinction between them. When one works to make the two grammatically parallel, one is also making sure that the two elements are really similar in some basic way, so that a distinction between them is meaningful. "Faulty parallelism" is worth attending to: when it arises from faulty comparison (i.e., the implicit comparison of two unlike things), it can help you notice (and correct) sloppy thinking.
13b. When you use a coordinating team (for example, not only/but also, both/and, more/than, whether/or), the SAME GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION must come after BOTH of the two members of the team. Faculty: She is not only miserly, but she is also greedy, so she often has trouble deciding whether it would be better to hoard her money or indulge herself. Above, an adjective follows the first of the two partners on the "not only...but also" team, but only a phrase follows the second. Correct: She is not only miserly, but also greedy; so she often has trouble deciding whether to hoard her money or to indulge herself. An adjective follows each of the two partners on the "not only..but also" team. An infinitive phrase follows each of the two partners on the "whether...or" team. Flawed: She is not only miserly, but also bullies people. 13c. Items in a SERIES should also be parallel constructions: Flawed: I like to eat and cook, to listen and talk, and reading and Correct: I like to eat and cook, to listen and talk, to read and write. 14. Avoid starting a sentence with also. The word also indicates so close a relationship between two things that both ought rightly be contained within a single sentence. If you are right to begin a new sentence, you should use a word like "furthermore" or a phrase like "in addition" to mark a close relationship to the preceding sentence (and follow it with a comma: see #1d). 15. In formal analytic arguments, don't use etc. (et cetera, abbreviated), which means "and other similar things." If you need more evidence and can offer it, then SPECIFY exactly what it is. Don't try to weight the argument with the vague implication that you could have shown us something more, had you chosen to do so. Such a strategy is coy, evasive, and unconvincing. It weakens your argument rather than strengthening it. If something more needs to be said, then say it--precisely, fully, and clearly. If not, then close your case.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Finca Vigia ed. Foreword John, Patrick, and Gregory Hemingway. New York: Scribner's, 1987. |