GOOD WRITING
Tips, Techniques, and Discussion
(or, “How to Avoid Dr. Bowman’s Merciless Red Pen” )

 

This document is more than just a list of pet peeves (although it certainly is that, too). It’s a discussion of how to avoid mistakes that will make people take your writing less seriously. As a result, it’s a guide to communicating. Before you can get your ideas across, you have to meet a minimal, baseline standard of linguistic competence. In the academy, that standard is much higher than you might think. If you don’t meet it, the best ideas in the world will never be heard because your readers will assume that a person too lazy to write up to that minimal standard is not worth bothering with. (That may not be fair, but it’s the way it is, and the sooner you accept it and start working under that framework, the better.) And if you follow these rules in your non-academic life in e-mails, letters, applications you’ll find that you are given a fair hearing more often. So pay attention; this is about far more than getting a good grade on papers in this class. This is about what educated discourse sounds and reads like, about gaining entry to the conversation.

Contents:

        I.            Section I: Grammar, Construction and Other Technical Stuff

A.     Passive voice

B.     Commas

C.     Parallelism

D.     Hypothetical pronouns

     II.            Section II: Style and Content

A.     Read the assignment

B.     Use sources judiciously

C.     Avoid time-wasters

D.     Don’t get too clever

   III.            Section III: Error Corrections

  IV.            Section IV: Final Words of Wisdom


Section I: Grammar, Construction, and Other Technical Stuff
Or, “They're all there already--now we've got to get them in the right order.”

Passive voice: the enemy of clarity. Like so many features of our language, the passive voice is fine in its place. But believe me: that place is rarely found in academic writing. If you go through your paper and eliminate nine out of every ten times you use the passive voice, you’ll automatically improve your writing 90%. (You guessed it: eliminate the tenth time to achieve 100% improvement.) Here are some examples from actual student papers to illustrate how the passive voice convolutes your writing and causes your readers’ eyes to glaze over:
 


    (Before you read on, identify the passive construction (or constructions) in those sentences. This discussion isn’t going to do you any good if you don t know what passive voice is and what it looks like. Consult a grammar book or website if you need to. Go ahead--I’ll wait.)
    Can you tell why students want to use the passive? That’s right--to avoid having to attribute an action or attitude to anybody. After all, we wouldn’t want to accuse anyone specific of asking the question about who is responsible! The passive seems like a natural way of asserting something without having to name names. But that’s exactly why it looks weaselly to your readers. Don’t you have the guts to say, “We might ask who is responsible,” or “Some (or many, or most) people ask who is responsible?” The passive makes it look like you re hiding something.
    And of course, the passive makes your sentences unwieldy, clumsy and confusing. Compare the second sentence above, which is arch, distant, and difficult to put together in your head (there’s a dangling modifier in there as well as a passive--the passive makes it difficult to avoid dangling modifiers) to a rewritten version: “When we examine capitalism, we wonder whether some are being left behind.” There, now: isn’t that a thousand times clearer? Eliminate the passive from your writing and you will make your points more directly and with less chance of misunderstanding, I promise you. (You may have noticed that I left one of the passive constructions in that sentence alone! We could eliminate it too, like this: “... we wonder whether it leaves some behind.” But the passive construction “is left behind” might be calculated to recall something President Bush said repeatedly in his campaign: “so that no child is left behind.” On the other hand, eliminating that passive connects up the two clauses in the sentence by forcing us to put in a pronoun referencing “capitalism,” which is, after all, the subject under discussion. There might be a reason to leave it be, but the sentence improves upon its elimination.)
    Check this website for more details and practice. Here’s another that adds information on how to avoid “weak verbs.”

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Commas--the reader’s friend. Most students have had a paralyzing fear of commas implanted in them at some point in their high school training. I could understand this if everyone took journalism--journalistic style weeds out commas to save ink--but in most writing, the comma is a wonderful tool for keeping your reader on track in the sentence. There s no reason to be afraid of it.

(1) Be sure to put a comma after an introductory clause. Let’s take that second example from the passive voice section, above. Did you notice that when I rewrote it, I put in a comma where before there was none? “When we examine capitalism, we wonder ...” Your readers needs a cue to tell them that you’re done with the scene-setting part of the sentence, and that now you’re making your main point. Sure, your readers will be able to go back and figure it out once they’ve read the whole comma-less sentence. But why should they have to go back? Give them the cue so they can keep on track as they read.
Of course, a few students overuse commas, and the rule I’ve just stated can be taken to ridiculous extremes. One word of transition at the start of a sentence, for example, does not an introductory clause make. Many students write: “But, it is important to realize ...” or “Today, we realize that ...” On the other hand (here comes one of those equivocations for which I am justly famous), some introductory words just look and read funny without a comma. “However” is probably the best example. “ Therefore” probably doesn’t need the comma, but putting it in isn’t wrong either. How about a rule of thumb:
 


That rule will eliminate your commas after opening conjunctions like “But” and “And,” but will leave “However, ...” intact. (And by the way, it’s not wrong to start a sentence with a conjunction, no matter what you’ve been told. I do it all the time. It’s a matter of personal style (like so much in writing that looks like rule-breaking). But if you don’t have a personal style yet--and most students don’t--it’s probably a good idea not to go crazy with the opening conjunctions.

(2) Use a comma to divide compound sentences. Look at the first sentence of the previous paragraph: “Of course, a few students overuse commas, and the rule I’ve just stated can be taken to ridiculous extremes.” Do you see why that’s a compound sentence? Subject-and-verb number one (“students overuse”), then subject-and-verb number two (“rule can be taken”). If you don’t divide them with a comma before the conjunction, your readers will be merrily moving along thinking you’re adding another object to the first verb: “... overuse commas and the rule I ve just stated ...” (the rule gets overused in addition to the commas). Then they realize that the “and” was a conjunction in a compound series, not in a series, and once again they have to go back and rethink the sentence to make sense of it. Don t make them go back. Give them the comma cue.
For more good info on correcting comma mistakes from our Canadian friends, see this link.

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Parallelism--more than just gymnastics. Lots of students try to use parallel constructions in order to make linked points. Unfortunately, few of those constructions turn out to be parallel. Consider another real-life example:
 


Ignore for a moment the missing comma before “whereas,” which should be sticking out at you like a sore thumb after reading the last section. Instead, look at the two items the writer is trying to put side-by-side: most people find (a) “active euthanasia as outright murder” and (b) “passive euthanasia is just allowing a patient to die.” These two phrases are of equivalent interest in the sentence. But the first lacks a verb, while the second is a full-fledged clause of its own. Both parallel phrases ought to have the same construction. Let’s make them parallel on the model of phrase (a):
 


Better--at least we have parallelism--but that “find as” construction is odd (does anybody say that in real life?) and weak (because it lacks a strong verb). We could change “find” to “think of”-- “think of [something] as [something else]” is a phrase we might actually use in speech, at least. But let’s try rewording in parallel on the model of phrase (b):
 


Notice how the use of a verb in both clauses, even if it s only a piddling “is,” suddenly makes the sentence stronger. Now it sounds like the writer is actually saying something, rather than avoiding responsibility for whatever gets said! It’s clearer, more direct, and more robust.
    Be aware that parallel construction needs to be used in sentence types that will be common in your academic assignments, such as comparison or contrast of two positions. Learn to see those processes happening in your sentences, so you can tell where to make phrases parallel.
    Here’s some more help on parallelism, along with quizzes to make sure you can recognize it when you see it.

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Those pesky hypothetical pronouns. Students tie themselves in knots about how to refer to a hypothetical person. What’s a hypothetical person? Here are a few examples:
 


In all three cases, our writers have imagined a person to whom they now must refer, in the rest of the sentence, with a pronoun. Let’s take a look at their strategies for choosing that pronoun, one at a time.

(1) In the first example, the writer feels that it would be very impressive to use the word “one,” which certainly has a literary feel to it, and avoids making any determination of the gender of the person in the first clause. (Notice also that she avoids attaching a possessive pronoun to “God-given rights,” resulting in a phrase that sounds more like a telegram than regular prose--we feel that there s a word missing there.) So this is strategy #1: “One.”
    It’s a fine strategy as far as it goes. But you’re not writing a speech to be delivered before the British parliament; you’re writing for your peers. How does the use of “one” make you feel as a reader? It’s rather formal, distant, and highfalutin. It’s not wrong--but it’s not good writing in an undergraduate academic context. Plus, if you use it, you can’t just pick it up in the second half of the sentence. It has to be used throughout the sentence--or even beyond, if you keep talking about this hypothetical: “When one wants to exercise one s God-given rights, one should take others into consideration.” No “person,” no “somebody,” no sudden reverting to “he” or “she.” And the more “one’s” you use, the more formal, distant, and highfalutin your writing will sound. Avoid this strategy.

(2) In the second example, the writer begins with an indefinite pronoun (“someone”), then has to figure out how to refer back to it. Actually, he probably didn’t do any figuring at all; he just wrote what came naturally, which is to say, what he would have said. In speech, we have adopted the strategy of using the plural pronoun they to avoid specifying the gender of a hypothetical person. We’ll call it strategy #2: “They.”
    Looking into my crystal ball, I see a time in the not-so-distant future when this will be a perfectly acceptable way of fixing the problem. After all, it works so well in speech. No American English speaker has ever misunderstood her conversation partner when this strategy is used. Sure, it breaks a “rule” of grammar--that singular antecedants require singular pronouns--but rules are not the be-all and end-all of writing. Communication is. And writing that communicates efficiently and clearly will, in the end, trump rigid rules.
    But for now, you shouldn t do this. Not because it’s wrong or bad writing, but because very few readers will let you get away with it. What’s acceptable in speech still jars us when we see it on the printed page. If you write this way, you will look like you don’t know anything about pronoun agreement, your professors will mark you down, and your peers will sense that your prose is different from the professional-quality academic writing they read elsewhere. File this strategy away in the back of your mind; a couple of decades from now, maybe less, and you’ll be able to use it.

(3) That brings us to the third sentence, which tries to be gender-inclusive by specifying that the hungry child could be either a “he” or a “she.” Good instinct. After all, the problem under consideration is that we don’t want to bias our readers by making our hypothetical person too specific. If the hypothetical person could be man or woman, boy or girl, then strategy #3: “he or she” seems exactly the right thing to do.
    Except ... imagine what’s going to happen as our writer goes on about the hungry child: “He or she not only deserves to be fed, but he or she also has a right to have his or her nutritional needs met with a varied diet likely to please him or her.” Once you start with this strategy, you can’t stop, and the “or’s” are going to pile up in your sentences like a train wreck. It gets very clumsy, very tiring to read, very fast. So I’d advise to you avoid this one, too.

(4) Many of you were taught in primary and secondary school that “he” is the generic pronoun. It doesn’t mean a man; it means a person, non-gender-specific. Well, I’m here to tell you that the world has moved on, and that this is no longer true. (It hasn’t been true for about 25 years, but it takes a while for this news to filter down past higher educational institutions.) In the academy and in the educated world at large, you will not be allowed exclusively to use “he” when you refer to hypothetical people. So break yourself of the habit as soon as you can.

(5) By now you’re thoroughly frustrated, pounding your desk and screaming, “What do you want us to do, then?” I’m going to tell you, never fear. But this isn’t just the answer for me; it’s the way academia as a whole (especially the humanities) has decided to solve the problem. So I’m telling you to use it, not just in my class, but in all your writing. The sooner you get used to it, the better.
    Strategy #4 (the winner!): Alternate. If you’ll look back over this document, you’ll find that I’ve been using this strategy all along. The first time you write about a hypothetical person, use “she” and “her.” The second time, use “he” and “him.” Then go back to the female pronoun. Sure, it will be strange (at first) using the female pronoun to refer to a non-gender-specific construct. But using the male pronoun is just as strange, when you think about it, and we’ve all been conditioned to think that’s perfectly correct. Academic writing now uses alternating pronouns as a matter of course.
    A few caveats: First, you can’t change the gender of your hypothetical person within the same sentence or even within the same sphere of reference. If you start talking about that hungry child from Bangladesh, and then continue talking about him for the next few sentences, keep using the same pronouns. Don t change him from a boy to a girl. Wait to alternate until you’re talking about a new “someone” or “person” or “anybody.” Second, don’t mix this strategy with any of the others. No fair suddenly breaking out the “one” or “he or she.” Just stick to the alternation. And finally, I’d recommend that your first hypothetical pronoun be feminine. Why? Because if you use “he” the first time in your paper, your reader/professor will think that you are using “he” as the gender-neutral pronoun, as I described in (4). She’s not going to know that you’re aware of the gender problem -- she’ll assume that you re ignorant of it, until such time as you reassure her by switching to the feminine pronoun in the next instance. Why make her wait? Show her your intentions right off the bat by using “she” and “her” first.

(6) Thought I was done, didn t you? Well, there s one other way to deal with the problem, but it doesn t always work. That s to pluralize your hypothetical person into hypothetical people. Then the gender issue doesn t even come up. Here are rewritten versions of our three examples, using this strategy:
 


Works wonderfully, doesn’t it? But a paper full of plurals will lose some impact. There will be times when you will want to create a singular hypothetical person, and the pluralizing strategy will cause your argument to look overgeneralized or just not punchy enough. So don’t seize this strategy as your only lifeline. Learn to alternate, then use this strategy sparingly.
    Here’s a site that argues for pluralizing as an all-purpose solution – I disagree, but it’s still got great examples.  This overview of gender-fair language also addresses a common
student problem: using “man” instead of “human.”

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Section II: Style and Content

Read the assignment. It’s amazing how many times the assignment will tell you, more or less directly, how to organize your paper. If you don’t know where to start, do the first thing the assignment tells you to do, then the next, then the next, until you’re done. Then go back and write an introduction and conclusion. Reading the assignment will also tell you exactly what your professor expects from you. After you ve finished writing, see if you’ve done it. There s nothing more frustrating to a professor than reading a terrific paper that doesn’t answer the question. Many of you savvy kids got away with that in high school. You won’t in college.

Use sources judiciously. It’s very tempting to quote at length from a source that makes exactly the point you want to make. If quotations start to take over your paper, though, your reader will rightly wonder whether you have anything of your own to say. Find a happy medium in quoting -- not too long, not too short. If you have too many quotations, change some of them into paraphrases, or just eliminate the ones that don’t advance your argument.

Avoid wasting words, space, and the reader’s time. Many of you have gotten very adept at plumping up your sentences, paragraphs, and pages by using time-wasters. If I see sentences starting with “the point is,” “an example is,” or “the fact that,” I will excise them ruthlessly. These time-wasters add nothing to your writing except a few more words and a needlessly complex sentence structure (in which you will usually get lost and flounder about, anyway). Look for openers like these in your writing, eliminate them, and recast the sentences as direct statements. Here’s a pithy summary of “deadwood” and how to get rid of it.

Don’t get too clever for your own good. Writing for your teacher or writing about an academic topic often leads students to write in what they imagine to be an elevated style, using words, phrases, and constructions that they would never use in “real life.” Guess what? Academia is “real life,” too. And we don’t want to read tortured, contorted, unnatural language any more than your e-mail correspondents do. So while academic writing needs to be more formal than some writing you do--meaning complete sentences, proper punctuation, conscious organization--it doesn’t need to be more remote, more antiseptic, or wordier.
    The single best piece of advice I can give for your writing is this: Simplify. Be direct and clear. Eliminate unnecessary words. Streamline. If you don’t follow this advice, sometimes the result is unintentionally hilarious. Take this (again real-life) example:
 


Take a second to consider what that opening phrase is saying. That’s right--doctors apparently aren’t people. This writer got into trouble simply because he wanted to use a literary turn of phrase, and he ended up committing a howler to paper.

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Section III: Error Corrections

When your paper is returned to you, it will have a bunch of little cryptic marks all over it. Refer to this page to find out what those marks mean. If you ask me, I’m just going to tell you to look at this page, so always come here first.

awk = awkward phrasing or structure
^ = (caret) insert word(s) or punctuation noted above
sp = spelling
c = capitalization
vt = verb tense
va = verb agreement
pv = passive voice
pa = pronoun agreement
pg = pronoun gender
// = parallelism
a = apostrophe
q = quotation marks (always use double except for quotes-within-quotes)
n = numbers (write out if 100 or less)
= (pigtail) remove
= paragraph
rep = repetitive
w = wrong or poor word choice
h = hyphen or dash (use two hyphens together for a dash)
dm = dangling or misplaced modifier
COIK = clear only if known (requires the reader to have more information than you provide)
? = not clear
= reverse order

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Section IV: Final Words of Wisdom

What’s the best way to avoid all these pitfalls? Read over your paper before you turn it in. Read it aloud to your roommate--whatever is weird or confusing or convoluted, whatever your roommate doesn’t understand, rephrase. Have a friend or two read it--people whom you know will be honest with you. Often we’re blind to what’s bad about our own writing, because it makes sense to us--after all, we know what we meant! But you need to be communicating to your readers, not to yourself, and your readers can’t read your mind. It all needs to be down there on paper, clear and direct, not obscured by grammatical, spelling, and structural errors.

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