HISTORY DEPARTMENT

 

A Few Stylistic Recommendations

by
Todd F. Carney
Southern Oregon University

(Copyright 1996, 2004 Todd F. Carney. This material may be used for instructional purposes without permission, but all commercial rights are reserved.)

"Style," in the sense used here, does not mean self-expression of personality. Instead, it refers to generally recognized principles for relating your ideas and arguments in writing. Just as playing a musical instrument involves certain self-disciplines--tempo must be kept "accurate," hand and fingers must be held "correctly," attacks and releases must be executed in a certain way--writing also has disciplines. Likewise, many sports have "rules" and principles that an athlete ignores at peril to her skill and abilities. Coaches and trainers teach best ways of holding a bat or golf club, best ways of swinging a tennis or squash racket, and best ways of executing a forward pass. After musicians, athletes, and writers learn, practice, and master the "basics," they sometimes carefully modify the "rules" to suit their particular needs and personalities. Many world-class musicians and athletes (and writers), however, never deviate from basic principles. Instead, they use those principles as tools for self-expression. The following style guidelines will help you express your ideas and arguments. In the process of doing so, you will be expressing important parts of yourself. Items 6 through 14 below contain specific stylistic suggestions.

1. Avoid passive voice. Always make the subject of your sentences do something. Consider the following sentence:

John was punished by his father for stealing the candy.

In this example, John, the subject of the sentence, had something done to him. He was passive. Now consider this sentence, a revision of the first one:

John's father punished him for stealing the candy.

Here, the subject of the sentence is John's father, who is doing something, namely punishing John for stealing. Compare the first sentence with the second. You will sense that the second is more direct and stronger than the first. This sense is created by a complex psychology we need not bother with here. Suffice it to say that, whenever possible, use active voice instead of passive voice. Try to make the subject of each sentence act. Your writing will be forceful and vigorous when you do. Sometimes, however, you cannot avoid using passive voice, as when recasting the sentence in active voice also makes it horribly clumsy or unclear.

2. Eliminate unnecessary words. Direct and easy to read writing uses as few words as possible to say what must be said. Adding (or failing to remove) unneeded words simply dilutes the meaning of your sentences. Consider this sentence:

Mary is a woman who likes to work hard.

It uses nine words to say,

Mary likes to work hard

or, simpler still,

Mary works hard.

The words "is a woman who" are completely unnecessary. We can assume Mary is a woman if we already know she is not, for instance, a five year old girl instead of an adult. "Who" is a pronoun and is not needed when a proper noun, in this case "Mary," has already been used. You can find many other examples of unneeded words in common expressions and phrases. Do your best to remove them and your writing will greatly improve.

3. Be authoritative. When you write an essay you are stating and arguing your opinion. However, avoid weak phrases like: "In my opinion," or "It seems to me." Consider this:

In my opinion, John is completely wrong.

Why not just say, simply and emphatically,

John is completely wrong.

Your reader already understands you are stating your opinion. However, the psychological effect of prefacing your opinions with phrases like "In my opinion" is to weaken the impact of those opinions. It sounds as if you are unsure of yourself or that you are equivocating. Moreover, by doing so you are adding unnecessary words further weakening your sentences. To make your writing and opinions seems sure and authoritative, present your ideas as simple declarations. If John is wrong, just say so--emphatically--then back it up with evidence.

4. Make the paragraph the basic unit of your writing. Paragraphs should generally begin with a topic sentence. The rest of the paragraph should develop that one topic, making whatever explanations are necessary, and adding such details and evidence as needed. As noted above, it should usually end by alluding to the next paragraph's topic.

Technically, paragraphs can be any length. Within limits, each must be as long as required to fully discuss its topic. However, too great a length may tire your reader. If a paragraph threatens to fill an entire page of double-space type, you may want to see if it can be logically broken in two. It may, in fact, be long because it addresses more than one topic. If so, split the topics apart.

5. Keep to one tense. Do not change verb tense within any given paragraph. Many times you could write a paragraph in either the present tense or the past tense. Pick one and stick to it. Since your papers will be about a historical topic, you may wish to choose the past tense for most of your writing. Read the following paragraph carefully:

In her essay, "The Great Lawsuit," Margaret Fuller says women were treated as inferiors. Men are always trying to prescribe for women their proper role in society. Fuller says women will have to find for themselves their true place in the world, and look within themselves for inner strength.

This paragraph contains three verb tenses: past, present, and future: "Margaret Fuller says [present] women were treated [past] as inferiors." "Men are [present] ... ." "Fuller says women will have [future] to find ... ." What problems do this kind of tense change create? First of all, some of what this paragraph relates is false. Technically speaking, Margaret Fuller can't say anything--she is long dead. It is true, on the other hand, she said a great many things in the past. It is here the decision must be made concerning what tense the paragraph will be written in.

The next sentence could present the writer with a problem. On the one hand, Fuller said "Men are always trying to prescribe for women their proper role in society." However, you may believe what Fuller said in the past is still true and, therefore, you may want to cast the sentence in the present tense. DO NOT DO IT. Tense changes confuse your reader, and sometimes cloud your meaning. You have time to tell the reader what you think about Fuller's subject in relation to today's realities if you wish to, but this sentence is not the best place to do so.

The last sentence is difficult as well, but the one paragraph-one tense rule makes the whole look like this:

In her essay, "The Great Lawsuit," Margaret Fuller said women were treated as inferiors. Men were always trying to prescribe for women their proper role in society. Fuller said women had to find for themselves their true place in the world, and look within themselves for inner strength.

Each sentence in this paragraph now works as a unit, each cast in the same tense. Readers appreciate this kind of consistency.

6. Vary your choice of words. Do not use the same word or phrase too often, either in the same paragraph or in the same essay. Consider the following selection:

John Blassingame spent a great deal of time presenting the variety of plantation life in the antebellum South. Rather than present plantation owners as great villains, he showed how some of them showed a great deal of compassion toward slaves. He also presented antebellum life from the perspective of the slaves, and he showed how some of them were able to preserve some of their ancestor's way of life.

You will notice the annoying repetitions of words and phrases: "a great deal" [twice], "great" [thrice], "present" or "presenting" [thrice], "plantation" [twice], "show" or "showed" [thrice], "life" [twice] and "antebellum" [twice]. Avoid this kind of duplication or triplication. English almost always provides plenty of words to substitute for those already employed. Here is the same paragraph with new words inserted:

John Blassingame spent a great deal of time presenting the variety of plantation life in the antebellum South. Rather than portraying planters as great villains, he showed how a number of them exhibited considerable compassion toward slaves. He also described society in the pre-Civil War South from the perspective of the bondsmen and women, and he detailed ways in which many were able to preserve some of their ancestors' culture.

Notice all duplication has been eliminated, except for common articles ("the," etc.) and prepositions ("in," "of," etc.). The paragraph is more interesting because of the word variation. Use a thesaurus (Roget's in dictionary form is cheap and easy to use) to find synonyms instead of droning on with the same worn-out word.

7. Never use "there"--ever. "There" serves no purpose in a sentence except as a preposition--an indication of location. In response to the question, "Where"?, you might answer, "there." This is acceptable, but you might just as well, or better, say "in Louisiana" or "in the South." Look at this simple declarative sentence:

There are three coins in the fountain.

In this context, what does "there" mean? It has no meaning and no definition. As noted earlier, you should ruthlessly eliminate words that contribute nothing to the meaning of your sentences. Why not just write:

Three coins lie in the fountain.

This sentence says the same thing as the first, but it does so with one less word, and with no meaningless words. It also has the virtue of being cast in the active voice. Eliminating "there" from any sentence will force you to rewrite it in active voice.

8. Use "that" very sparingly. "That" is another word having no clear definition. Like "there," "that" can be used as an indirect reference. In response to the question, "which book?," you might response, "that book." Again, you would do better to write "the book on the table," or "the book with the blue cover." The real problem with "that" is that it frequently adds needless words to a sentence, weakening it:

Blassingame showed that slaves were sometimes treated with compassion.

Eliminate "that" and the sentence retains its meaning and gains some strength:

Blassingame showed slaves were sometimes treated with compassion.

Notice here, though, the needless use of the preposition "with." The sentence could be simplified further to:

Blassingame showed slaves were sometimes treated compassionately.

Two words have been eliminated from the sentence but every bit of its meaning has been preserved. It has become a better sentence. You will sometimes have to use "that," but make sure every time you do it is necessary.

9. Vary the length of your sentences. A paragraph made up of sentences all the same length and type is dull and boring. Sometimes, such paragraphs have a clipped sing-song quality that distracts readers. This is a good example:

Andrew Jackson was a shrewd politician. He knew how to appeal to public opinion. He built his career on military success. He was popular with western voters. He also had friends in the South. He opposed South Carolina nullification. Still, he supported states' rights.

This paragraph has no variation in length or rhythm. Each sentence has ten, eleven, or twelve syllables, and each is a simple declarative, except the last. Here is one possible rewrite:

Andrew Jackson was a shrewd politician. He knew how to appeal to public opinion, and he built his career on military success. He was popular with western voters but he also had friends in the South, though he opposed South Carolina nullification. Still, he supported states' rights.

This new paragraph has substantial variation in sentence length. For this reason, it is easier to read. Another rewrite can illustrate a different failure of variation:

Andrew Jackson was a shrewd politician and he knew how to appeal to public opinion. He built his career on military success and he was popular with western voters. He also had friends in the South, though he opposed South Carolina nullification. Still, he supported states' rights.

Here, the first three sentences are the same length and cadence. Only the last rescues the paragraph from ponderous dullness. To add interest to your writing, vary sentence length.

10. Make sure pronoun references agree in type and number. Indefinite pronouns (words refering to unspecified things or people) such as another, anybody, everyone, nobody, someone, something, no one, nothing, are singular and you must treat them as such in your sentences. Consider:

Everyone said they would come.

Though this sounds like everyday usage, the sentence is grammatically incorrect. "Everyone" is singular, as implied by the word fragment "one." "They" is a collective pronoun-- it refers to more than one person and is, therefore, plural. On the other hand:

Everyone said he would come

is grammatically correct, since both pronouns are singular. However, you might object to this sentence on the grounds that it is gender specific. "Everyone" might be male or female. "He" is always male. You can get around this problem like this:

Everyone said he or she would come.

This refers to both genders properly in the singular. You could just as properly write:

Everyone said she or he would come.

Neither "he or she" or "she or he" would likely offend anyone, but both may seem a bit clumsy. Another approach, one which might be controversial, is to use "he" if you, the writer, are male, and "she" if you are female. Still another approach might be to alternate between "he" and "she" within a single piece of writing. No simple answers can be found for this problem as the English language has few neuter (non-gender) pronouns. You will have to decide for yourself the best method to use. DO NOT, however, use

he/she, she/he

or worse

s/he.

You should not use non-alphabetical symbols like the slash mark to replace words. No obvious pronunciation for either of these compounds comes to mind, and they both look as if they belong in a government report, or a legal contract, instead of in an essay.

11. Do not use redundancies. Remove words that repeat the meaning of an associated word. The following are a few examples (highlighted words are unnecessary):

a distance of six miles
advance forward
at the present time
in addition, he also
free gift
false illusion
another one
inside of
future prospects
an actual fact
past history
usual custom
equally as good as
outside of
small in size
retreat back

Notice each of the highlighted words either repeats the meaning of the other word or words in the phrase, or has no meaning at all. "A distance of six miles" can be reduced to "six miles." Six miles is a measurement of distance, so the word "distance" is repetitious. Likewise, all gifts are free, all illusions are false, all customs are usual, all facts are actual, and all history took place in the past. Again, remove all words that contribute nothing to your sentences.

12. A few miscellaneous style issues:

(a). Always enclose commas and periods within quotation marks when they fall at the end of a quoted word, clause, or sentence. Example: "As everybody knows," the man said, "you gather more flies with honey than with vinegar."

(b). In spite of the practices of journalists, use a comma before "and" or "or" in a series of three or more items in a sentence.

The dog was large, brown, and smelly.
Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate this card.

(c). Spell out numbers ninety-nine and below. Those 100 and above can be spelled out or written as digital figures, but you must be consistent. Examples: He was thirty-three years old. He ran 230 miles last week.

(d). Do not spell out numbers associated with years or page references. You can spell out dates and clock times, but, again, you must be consistent:

3:00pm -or- three o'clock in the afternoon
22 February 1991 -or- the twenty-second of February, 1991

(e). Please remember, if you must use it at all, that "a lot" is not spelled "alot." Instead, you would do better by writing "many," or "plenty," or "several," or almost any word or phrase conveying the same meaning.

(f). Remember to observe the difference between "to," "too," and "two."

(g). Be careful to correctly use "its" and "it's." The first is a possessive pronoun, the second is a contraction of "it is." In formal writing (such as your history paper), avoid using "it's" or any other contraction.

(h). Distinguish between and properly use "their" and "there." Do not use "there" at all.

 

A Few Books to Consult:

Ehrlich, Eugene. The Bantam Concise Handbook of English. Bantam Books, 1986.
Payne, Lucile Vaughan. The Lively Art of Writing. The New American Library, 1969.
Strunk, William, Jr. and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. 4th ed. Allyn & Bacon, 1999. Very important little book.
Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 5th ed. U/Chicago, 1985.
Horgan, Paul. Approaches to Writing. 2d ed. Wesleyan University Press, 1988. See especially Part One.

 

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