Posts Tagged ‘writing style’

The Esteemed Semi-Colon

Monday, July 19th, 2010

As most of my teaching time is spent tutoring, I am generally not concerned with unnecessary details: if the writing is clear and well-formatted, I’m happy.

I’ve changed my mind about what is “unnecessary”.

Formerly, I didn’t require the use of semi-colons.  Periods and commas were acceptable, and I figured there was no sense in boggling an already-boggled mind.  Last week, though, I met a 13-year-old who can use a semi-colon perfectly.

If he can do it, all of you can.

I have a thing about semi-colons.  They’re attractive (how can a dot and a squiggle be attractive?  It’s an English Major thing…), they give long sentences a wonderful flow, and they’re different.  Not many people use semi-colons anymore; if you want to stand out, learn to use a semi-colon properly.

The most common place to use a semi-colon is between two independent clauses which are closely related.  Generally, a semi-colon is used before the conjunction however.

e.g.  I love chocolate; however, I don’t consider white chocolate to be chocolate.

You can also use a semi-colon in a long list where commas are already used.

e.g.  There were many famous people at the party: Mr. X, a painter; Mrs. Z, a renowned neurologist and opera singer; and Ms. N, a politician.

Here’s a website which gives more explanations, and here is a quiz to take once you think you know what you’re doing.

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Making Lists

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Lists are informal things.  They’re scrawled on bits of torn paper, inscribed on the palm of a hand with a ballpoint pen, scratched inside a paperback novel.  They involve the nitty-gritties of life: food, must-dos, dates which - if forgotten - will cause chaos.

When lists are used in formal writing, they must be… formalised.  Think about some of these things when using a list:

  • use full sentences and proper sentence structure
  • use formal punctuation (check the rules for using commas and colons and conjunctions)
  • check your parallelism; if you have stated something must be done in 5 steps, then number the steps 1 through 5, not a) through e).  (Although, if one step has several parts, you can use letters to identify the sub-steps e.g. Step 3 a), Step 3 b) )
  • don’t use bullets

It’s best to avoid lists which are physically separated from the body of the writing.  (The above list is highly informal).  If you can swing it, write a list as full sentences within a paragraph.  This is a good time to see how interesting you can make a boring list; use your linguistic abilities.

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Academic Writing: How to Read and Write Scholarly Prose

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Before we start, I should warn you: this book is out of print.  The prices for a second-hand copy are probably not within the budget of the average student.  Hightail it to the library and grovel at the feet of your librarian.

Janet Giltrow has written several book on academic writing, including Academic Writing: An Introduction, and Academic Writing: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines.  These are very good books but the one you should get try to get your hands on is Academic Writing: How to Read and Write Scholarly Prose.  For the tentative writer, this book is the best of the lot.

This book is full of wonderful explanations, such as when it’s acceptable to use and at the beginning of a sentence, and how to position a topic within an essay and “flesh it out”.

The Table of Contents looks like this:

1: summarising what you’ve read (part one)

2: summarising what you’ve read (part two)

3: topics and readers

4: topic and meaning

5: quotation and documentation

6: descriptive definitions

7: reader-friendly styles

8: scholarly styles and scholarly arguments

9: making presentations and writing exams

I’ve been writing essays for some 30 years now, and I still re-read this book on a regular basis, refreshing my memory as to what my literary goals should be.  The book is written in a nice, easy style, and has cartoons which are just as explanatory as the chapters themselves.

If you can’t get hold of a copy, you’ll have to make do with the other two books.  They’re fine: they contain much the same information but it’s not presented quite so nicely.

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Royal Fireworks Press on YouTube

Monday, December 28th, 2009

After watching for almost an hour, I have decided this YouTube channel presents several worthy points for consideration.   These videos are taken from lectures for teachers; I think it’s equally important that students understand why formal writing is necessary for their education.

Royal Fireworks Press is a publishing company which focuses on books for teaching gifted children.  I like the videos Michael Clay Thompson has made for YouTube because, in them, he discusses all the problems which SentenceWorks is designed to fix.  Ideally, students should watch these videos when they are about 10 years old; if you’re over 10 and these concepts seem new and exciting, well…. :)

If you’re not up for watching the entire channel, here’s a short run-down of my favourite RFP videos from the channel:

The Connection Between Vocabulary and Writing: if you don’t know many words, you can’t write many words.  This is a most logical concept, but is one which many school systems have forgotten.  Unfortunately, the Mark Twain quote is wrong; it should read “If you catch an adjective, kill it.”

“Cool Grammar”: grammar is interesting… and it’s necessary for writing.  I like the idea of college classes on journal writing because that’s all the students know how to write when they finish high school.

Gifted Kids Need Classic Words and Academic Words: why are we teaching students to use informal language in school but then expect them to use big words in formal writing?  Greek and Latin roots are highly integral to the English language.  Thompson talks about the “National Vocabulary Prevention Programme”.

Paragraphs and Essays (What Matters is Structure): Thompson reads the opening sentence of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, demonstrating that it is one sentence.  Breaking “rules” is not important providing the general structure is kept.

Why Gifted Kids Need To Be Taught Formal Writing: it doesn’t matter what your IQ might be, everyone needs to learn to write properly if they are going to succeed in the modern education system.

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Insect Repellant

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Q. Should people who cannot grasp the difference between it’s and its be allowed to vote?
A. No.
Q. What about people who say, “Between you and I”?
A. We favor execution without trial.
(Dave Barry, “Mr. Language Person’s Tips,” 28 Jan 1996)

(Note: If you wish both to exercise your right to vote and to avoid the firing squad, see Bugs 14 and 42 on “between you and me.”)

from Exterminating the “Bugs” in Your Writing, by Timothy O’Grady

I’d like to say this quote is entirely in jest but, quite frankly, the people who are reading your assignments are probably thinking along these lines.  Certainly, by the time I get into the 4th or 5th hour of reading essays, the slightest error has me miming the firing squads.

O’Grady’s essay is an excellent collection of writing bugs: all 45 of them.  The bugs are nothing new; what makes this essay interesting is the explanation he gives.  Everything, he says, boils down to communication.  In the first paragraph, O’Grady explains the “static” which interferes with all communication.  As writers, our job is to keep that static to a minimum.

Some of my favourite bugs:

  • Bug #9 discusses repetition; Bug #10 refers to redundancy, which is often created by repetition (feel free to lightly mock the hypocrisy of the second sentence of the tip); Bug #11 explains the circular reasoning which redundancy creates.
  • Bug #16 provides a list of commonly overused or misused words and phrases (including my pet peeve “utilize”).
  • Bug #20 lists the plurals of some Greek and Latin words; please let me know if you have need of the plural of “hippopotamus” in the average formal essay.

When you have finished reading the essay, I recommend making yourself a cup of tea and contemplating the deeper meaning of communication.  You will be compelled to improve your writing only if there is good reason to do so.  Perhaps O’Grady will be the one to inspire you, given that literacy tests are not given at the voting stations.

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