Good Prose Good Writing: December 2007

Monday, December 17, 2007

Introduction - or whatever you want to call it.

I have to admit I have had a very tough time thinking about what to do with this paper.
Do you know what I came up with? NOTHING.
So instead of analyzing a random text about its prose style and rhetoric, I decided to to make a review blog about prose style. So people who feel lost like me will have a quick way to look up for references.
So here it comes...

Basic Prose Style Selection

After hours of looking up online and research, I have found that most common rule about prostyle is: "The Prose Style Section" describes basic principles of good prose style and illustrates most of these principles with examples. However, I would especially recommend two texts: The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White and Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity & Grace by Joseph Williams. These principles described in this blog are based on one overriding principle—that the essence of good writing is rewriting. Remember that good writing is hard work, and as Samuel Johnson said, "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

1. Write in active Voice

Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, always choose the active, rather than the passive, voice. With the active voice, the agent (the person or thing carrying out the action expressed by the verb) is the subject:

John opened the door.

There are two types of passive voice constructions. In one, the agent is identified, but the person or thing toward which the action is directed (rather than the agent) is the subject of the sentence:

The door was opened by John.

In the second type of passive voice construction, the agent is not identified at all:

The door was opened.

(Note: The verb "to be" [am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been] often flags the passive voice.)

In addition to being less natural, less direct, and less vigorous, sentences that fail to identify an agent can raise ethical questions, since they fail to attribute responsibility for the action they express. The passive voice can, however, be an effective means of doing at least three things:

a. Focusing attention on the thing acted upon:

The bus was destroyed by a freight train.

b. Describing action when the agent is unknown or unimportant:

The building was demolished over fifteen years ago.

c. Placing the agent at the end of a clause where he, she, or it can more easily be modified by a long modifier:

The house was built by John Hanson, who went on, years later, to become president of the Continental Congress.

Many science and technical writers once considered passive voice more objective than active voice and, hence, more appropriate to their writing. As the quotations below suggest, however, the traditional preference for passive voice in scientific and technical writing is changing:

We cannot object to this use of the passive construction in itself. We can object to its abuse—to use almost to the exclusion of all other constructions. When the passive is used as a rule, not as an exception to obtain a particular effect, writing soon begins to seem forced and uncomfortable.

— John Kirkman, Good Style: Writing for Science and Technology

2. Avoid Nominalizations

Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, avoid nominalizations. A nominalization is a noun derived from and communicating the same meaning as a verb or adjective. It is usually more direct, vigorous and natural to express action in verbs and qualities in adjectives.

no: Our expectation was that we would be rewarded for our efforts.

yes: We expected to be rewarded for our efforts.

no: There was a stuffiness about the room.

yes: The room was stuffy.

Nominalizations frequently crop up in noun strings. A noun string, a series of nouns that modify one another, is often concise but ambiguous. If the noun string is short, it can usually be tamed with a few judicious hyphens:

no: The test area probes were delivered last week.

yes: The test-area probes were delivered last week.

Longer noun strings, however, are often confusing, and it is generally best to unstring them by converting nominalizations back to verbs or by adding a few strategic articles and prepositions:

no: Missile guidance center office equipment maintenance is performed weekly.

yes: The office equipment in the missile guidance center is maintained weekly.

Like passive voice, nominalizations can serve some useful purposes:

a. Nominalizations can facilitate smooth transitions between sentences by serving as subjects that refer back to ideas in previous sentences:

Susan refused to accept the five-stroke handicap. Ultimately, this refusal cost her the match.

b. Nominalizations can be effective when you choose to desensitize a statement by converting the more vigorous and direct verb form into the less vigorous and direct noun form. Thus,

He is scheduled to be executed on Monday.

becomes

His execution is scheduled for Monday.

3. Place the Emphatic Words at the End of the Sentence

Two complementary principles of order and emphasis:

1. Whenever possible, express at the beginning of a sentence ideas already stated, referred to, implied, safely assumed, familiar—whatever might be called old, repeated, relatively predictable, less important, readily accessible information.

2. Express at the end of a sentence the least predictable, least accessible, the newest, the most significant and striking information.

no: Peter Laslett writes about how family structure has changed in his article, "The World We Have Lost."

yes: In his article, "The World We Have Lost," Peter Laslett writes about how family structure has changed.

In the first version, the emphasis is on the title of the article; in the second version, the emphasis is on the substance of the article. Note that according to the two principles above, what justly needs emphasis in a sentence generally depends upon what has already been said or what is already known; that is, upon the given information. When the given information is placed at the beginning of a sentence, it is understated and serves as a transition or introduction to the new information in the sentence, which is thereby emphasized.

4. Express Statements in Positive Form

The positive form of a statement is generally more concise and straightforward than the negative:

no: Don't write in the negative.

yes: Write in the affirmative.

no: Disengagement of the gears is not possible without locking mechanism release.

yes: To disengage the gears, you must first release the locking mechanism.

To understand the negative, we have to translate it into an affirmative, because the negative only implies what we should do by telling us what we shouldn't do. The affirmative states it directly.

Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

5. Punctuation

1. Commas

1.1 (a) Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, yet, so) that joins two independent clauses (compare 2.1). (An independent or main clause is a clause that can stand by itself as a separate sentence.):

The children escaped the fire without harm, but their mother was not so lucky.

(b) If the clauses are short and closely related, a comma is not required:

Frank typed and Matt watched.

(c) If the coordinate clauses are long or themselves contain commas, you can often avoid confusion by separating them with semicolons:

Paul went to his car, got a gun, and returned to the lake; but Bill, unfortunately, refused to be intimidated.

1.2 Use a comma to separate an introductory element (clause, phrase, conjunctive adverb, or mild interjection) from the rest of the sentence:

If you refuse to leave, I'll call the police. (clause)

To prepare for her exam, Lynn reread all of her notes. (phrase)

Nevertheless, much work still remains to be done. (conjunctive adverb)

Well, I was surprised to achieve these results. (interjection)

1.3 (a) Use commas to set off parenthetical elements or interrupters (including transitional adverbs):

The report, which was well documented, was discussed with considerable emotion. (nonrestrictive clause)

They were, however, still able to meet their deadline.(transitional adverb)

An important distinction must be made here between restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers. Restrictive modifiers are essential to the meaning of the sentence in that they restrict that meaning to a particular case. Hence, restrictive modifiers are not parenthetical and cannot be removed without seriously damaging the meaning. Since they are necessary to the meaning, restrictive modifiers are not set off by commas:

All soldiers who are overweight will be forced to resign.

Nonrestrictive modifiers are parenthetical. That is, they digress, amplify, or explain, but are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. These modifiers simply provide additional information for the reader—information which, although it may be interesting, does not restrict the meaning of the sentence and can be removed without changing the sentence's essential meaning:

Sgt. Price, who is overweight, will be forced to resign.

(b) Use commas to set off parenthetical elements that retain a close logical relationship to the rest of the sentence. Use dashes or parentheses to set off parenthetical elements whose logical relationship to the rest of the sentence is more remote (compare 4.2 and 5.1).

1.4 Use commas to join items in a series. Except in journalism, this includes a comma before the conjunction that links the last item to the rest of the series:

Before making a decision, he studied the proposition, interviewed many of the people concerned, and tried to determine if there were any historical precedents.

1.5 Although not called for by any of the above principles, commas are sometimes required to avoid the confusion of mistaken junction:

She recognized the man who entered the room, and gasped.

2. Semicolons

2.1 Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses that are closely related in meaning and are not joined by a coordinating conjunction (compare 1.1):

A filemode digit of 3 identifies a temporary file; temporary files are deleted automatically after being read.

2.2 Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses when the second one begins with or includes a conjunctive adverb (nevertheless, therefore, however, otherwise, as a result, etc.) (compare 1.3):

If CMS is waiting, the entry will be processed immediately; otherwise, it will be queued until requested.

2.3 To avoid confusion, use semicolons to separate items in a series when one or more of the items includes commas (see also 1.1c):

This manual also summarizes the Graduate School's mechanical requirements for theses; discusses the special requirements of students who are submitting computer programs as theses; reviews basic principles of punctuation, mechanics, and style; and refers student s to standard references on punctuation, mechanics, style, and usage.

3. Colons

3.1 Use a colon to introduce a list, an example, an amplification, or an explanation directly related to something just mentioned (compare 4.1) and 4.4):

The user may work from one of three modes when typing data into the file area: edit mode, input mode, or power typing. He eventually found that there was only one way to get the quality he expected from the people who worked for him: treat them with respect.

3.2 Use a colon to introduce a formal statement or quotation (usually of more than one line):

Writers who care about the quality of their work would do well to heed Samuel Johnson's advice: What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

4. Dashes

If your word-processor doesn't have an em-dash (a dash that is the width of a capital M) in its special character set, use two hyphens (--) to make a dash. Whichever one you use, except in journalism, you should leave no space between or on either side of the dash itself. Dashes are more widely accepted today than they were in the past; however, many writers and editors still consider them to be somewhat less formal marks of punctuation—use them sparingly.

4.1 Use a dash to introduce a summarizing word, phrase, or clause, such as an appositive (a noun set beside another noun and identifying or explaining it) (compare 3.1):

The strikers included plumbers, electricians, carpenters, truck drivers—all kinds of workers.

4.2 Use dashes to mark off a parenthetical element that represents an abrupt break in thought. Dashes give more emphasis to the enclosed element than do either commas or parentheses (compare 5.1):

Reagan's sweep of the South—he won every state but Georgia—was the most humiliating defeat for Carter.

4.3 To avoid confusion, use dashes to mark off parenthetical elements that contain internal commas:

Seven of our first twelve presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, and Taylor—were from Virginia.

4.4 Dashes can be used as a less formal alternative to the colon to introduce an example, explanation, or amplification (see 3.1).

For more on the use of dashes in journalism, see the entry on dashes in the Guide to Punctuation in the Associated Press Stylebook.

5. Parentheses

5.1 (a) Use parentheses to enclose parenthetical elements (words, phrases, or complete sentences that digress, amplify, or explain) (compare 1.3b) and 4.2).

When APL is on (indicated by the letters APL appearing at the bottom of the screen), no lower-case characters are available.

(b) A parenthesized sentence that appears within another sentence need not begin with a capital or end with a period.

(c) A comma may follow the closing parenthesis (if needed), but one should not precede the opening parenthesis.

5.2 Except in journalism, use square brackets [ ] to enclose a parenthetical element within a parenthetical element.

6. Ellipsis Dots

6.1 Use three dots

(a) to signal the omission of a word or words from the middle of a quoted sentence:

A senior White House official again asserted the administration's position: "We will not negotiate any treaty with the Soviets . . .unless it is verifiable."

(b) to signal hesitation or halting speech in dialogue:

"I . . . don't know what to say," he whispered.

6.2 Use four dots

(a) to signal the omission of the end of a quoted sentence:

"Of all our maladies, the most barbarous is to despise our being. . . . For my part, I love life and cultivate it."

— Montaigne

(b) to signal the omission of one or more whole sentences.

Except in journalism, ellipses dots should be spaced ( . . . vs. …).

7. Hyphens

7.1 To express the idea of a unit and to avoid ambiguity, hyphenate compound nouns and compound modifiers that precede a noun:

She was a scholar-athlete.

All-night terminal sessions are counterproductive.

The IBM 4250 printer has all-points-addressable graphics capabilities.

7.2 Use a hyphen between the components of any number (including fractions) below one hundred that is written as two words: thirty-five two-thirds

Good Prose Good Writing

Monday, December 17, 2007

Introduction - or whatever you want to call it.

Basic Prose Style Selection

Here are some useful links for reference

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1. Write in active Voice

2. Avoid Nominalizations

3. Place the Emphatic Words at the End of the Sentence

4. Express Statements in Positive Form

5. Punctuation