Audio File: Style and Mechanics Checklist Hi again everyone: I have for you here a checklist of specific aspects of style and mechanics that can make your writing stronger. The items on the checklist are specific, so the checklist should be especially useful as you try to strengthen your writing during the revision and proofreading stages. I recommend not worrying about the items on this checklist as you are writing a first or second draft of an essay focus instead on the thesis, organization, and the support and development of ideas. However, once you are happy with these larger aspects of your essay, it s time to focus on the sentence level of your writing and to make improvements there. I present only matters involving style and mechanics here. The Writing Tips Adobe Acrobat file includes an outline of some of the material listed here but also includes some basic information on the larger aspects of your essay that can be helpful as you are writing and revising. Please study your essays carefully with this checklist in front of you. I m sure that you will be able to find at least a few ways that you can strengthen your writing. Let s begin with matters of style. First, I want to share with you a way to use your word processor to help you strengthen your writing style. I have several suggestions for words that you should eliminate from your writing or replace with stronger words. Your word processor probably has a Find feature that can help you locate words and the number of times you use words in essays. I am most familiar with Microsoft Word. If you pull down the Edit menu in Word, you will see the Find feature. Click Find, type the word you want to find into the box, choose More, and then check Find whole words only. This last option will prevent the program from locating words that contain the letters of your word. For example, if you are searching for the word is, you would want the program to locate only that word, not any words that contain i and s together. Now, let s talk about style. a. Style i. Eliminate the first person: I, me, etc. First-person pronouns can make your writing sound informal and wordy and can make you sound less confident of what you are saying. Just delete I think that from the beginning of a sentence, and you will be left with a better sentence. ii. Eliminate unnecessary words: very, extremely. These words are almost always unnecessary and suggest that the writer is trying to make ideas sound more important. They can also be an indication of poor word choice. For example, we have words that mean very happy, including ecstatic and overjoyed. When you 1
use the right word, very and extremely become completely unnecessary. iii. Eliminate/Revise weak words: a lot, got, has, have. A lot can be replaced with the better sounding many or much. Got is an unpleasant sounding word, and has and have are often overused. iv. Eliminate contractions: can t is better stated as cannot ; they re is better stated as they are. Eliminating the contractions is an easy way to make your writing sound more formal. v. Eliminate overuse of to be verbs ( is, are, was, were, etc.) To be is the most commonly used verb, and it s easy to slip into a repetitive pattern of using to be verbs as the primary verb in sentences ( He is, They are, It is, etc.). Count how many times you use forms of the to be verb in an essay. Just choose the Find feature in your word processor, and make sure to choose the Find Whole Words only option. Then, click Next while counting how many times the words appear. If, in a 600-800 words essay, you used forms of to be 20 to 25 times or more, you should consider rewriting some sentences to add more variety in terms of the verbs you use. And, because are, is, was, and were are all forms of the same verb, they should be added together as you come up with how many times you use forms of to be in an essay. vi. Eliminate awkward phrases: This quote This quotation. An awkward pattern is to present a quotation, followed by a period, followed by a new sentences that begins with This quote or This quotation explaining the significance of the quoted words. Instead, try putting a comma after the quotation followed by the word suggesting, indicating, implying, meaning (or similar word), followed by an explanation of the significance of the quoted words. vii. Eliminate wordiness: the fact that, a woman that, a man that. There are many wordy phrases that can come up in an essay, and most are so familiar that we can even make a list of wordy phrases to avoid. At the top of the list is the fact that, which is the most commonly used wordy phrase. It always should be eliminated from your writing. Long sentences are not wordy sentences: wordy sentences contain words that convey no significant meaning or phrases that can be eliminated or replaced with fewer words without any loss of meaning. George is complacent is much better than the wordy George is a man who is complacent. viii. Eliminate repeated words: in the story, the story (Look for your own repeated words.). It s easy to repeat words without realizing that you are doing so. Look carefully through your essay to identify any words and phrases that come up repeatedly, and see how many of those words or phrases you can eliminate. 2
ix. Avoid the use of words that cast doubt on your authority as the author: could, might, probably, etc. As the author of your essay, you need to convey a sense of authority, so avoid the use of words that make you sound unsure of your ideas. x. Avoid redundant sentence structure: How do sentences begin? How long are sentences? How are sentences structured? As you are writing, you might not even notice that five of your last sentences begin the same way and are all short. Often, this is the kind of thing you notice only if you specifically look for it in your writing. xi. Author s name use only the full name the first time you refer to the author: then use the last name, not the first name! This is just the convention. And it s wordy and unnecessary to present the complete name repeatedly. xii. Avoid overuse of the passive voice. Most sentences can be written either in the passive voice or the active voice, which has nothing to do with the verb tense. The active voice appears in a sentence such as I ate the dinner. The passive voice would be The dinner was eaten by me. The passive voice always is wordier than the active voice. You can identify the passive voice if you look for something done by someone or something. The by phrase may not be in the sentence but can be put into sentences with the passive voice to determine who is performing the action: The window was broken is the passive voice even without the by phrase because, to determine who or what broke the window, we need to supply the by phrase: The window was broken by a baseball. The active voice is A baseball broke the window. You should avoid overuse of the passive voice, and, when you use it, there should be a good reason for it. (And some sentences are better written with the passive voice, including this sentence.) xiii. Are all quotations integrated into your own sentences? No quotation should be standing alone in your essay: this is a major stylistic weakness. Make those quoted words flow smoothly and logically with your own words. xiv. If you are writing about an essay, you can assume that the authorial voice is the writer s. However, the authorial voice of a short story is referred to as the narrator. If you are writing about a short story, be careful not to confuse the author with the narrator. The author creates a narrator that tells the story. xv. Do not use the title of an essay or short story or other work of art that you are analyzing as the title of your own essay. Now, let s focus on ways in which the mechanics of an essay could be stronger. Mechanics is a general term I use to refer to the errors in an essay and to the correctness of an essay. Mechanics involves punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. 3
b. Mechanics i. Titles of essays and short stories go in quotation marks. They are not underlined, italicized, or put into bold fonts. (But you should not put quotation marks around your own title appearing at the top of your essay.) ii. Quotations 1. No spaces should appear between quotation marks and the words you are quoting! Students often seem to love to put in an extra space between the first quotation mark and first word quoted, like this, but this is incorrect. 2. Check final punctuation. If you are not using parenthetical citations, then the punctuation should go inside of the final quotation mark, like this. If you are using parenthetical citations, the punctuation goes after the last parenthesis, like this (12). There are a few exceptions to these rules, which are explained on the Using Quotations web page. 3. Use the correct punctuation, if any is needed, as you introduce quotations. When do you use a colon? When do you use a comma? When do you not use any punctuation at all? There are easy answers to these questions, which are explained on the Using Quotations page. 4. Double check all quotations for accuracy. When you use quotations, you are using someone else s words, so you need to make sure that you copy the words accurately. Consistently inaccurate quotations are a sign that the writer is not paying close attention to details. 5. Make sure that all quotations make sense grammatically with your sentences in which the quotations appear. Even if a sentence includes a quotation, the sentences must be grammatically sound. Using short, well-integrated quotations will help you make the quotations fit into your own sentences grammatically. 6. Remove final punctuation from quotations if that punctuation makes no sense with your own sentences. For example, something like this, should be avoided. Even if a comma appears after the word this in the source, it makes no sense grammatically in the sentence above, so it should be eliminated. Never do something like this,. And never do something like this, (12). iii. Double check for plagiarism! Plagiarism takes several forms, and plagiarism often is unintentional. However, because plagiarism is a form of cheating, an essay with plagiarism must receive a failing grade. If you copy phrases from a source, those phrases must be put in quotation marks. See the course web pages on plagiarism for more information. iv. Use 12-point fonts and double space your essay. 4
v. Do not put your own title in quotation marks; do not underline or italicize your own title. vi. If you use Word, have you carefully checked any parts of your essay that Word underlines in green or red? In Word, red underlining indicates a word that the program in interpreting as being misspelled; green underlining indicates something that the program interprets as being flawed grammatically. Right click on the underlining to see what the problem is and any alternatives that the program suggests. Realize that grammar checkers are correct only about half of the time. vii. Check if words you write as two words should be written as one word: cannot, throughout, all right, etc. viii. Have you checked all comma usage for correctness? You should become familiar with the comma rules on The Fascinating World of Commas web page. This page presents only some of the rules that govern the use of commas, but it identifies and explains the most common rules. If many comma errors have been identified on your earlier essays, and if you think that commas should be placed wherever you pause in a sentence, then you need to study The Fascinating World of Commas web page carefully! ix. Have you checked all semicolons for correct use? Even though I often repeat in classes that semicolons should be used in places where a period would be correct because a semicolon separates two complete sentences closely related in meaning, it seems that some students insist on using semicolons incorrectly as some kind of fancy comma that creates a longer pause that a comma does. This is incorrect. x. Have you spelled the author s name correctly? Check those details! I once had a student misspell Ernest Hemingway s first name and last name. Although a seemingly minor error in itself, such as error is bound to have quite a negative effect on readers. xi. Have you copied the title of the story correctly? Again, pay attention to the details. This list gives you many aspects of style and mechanics to consider. However, you should also consider making your own personal list of things to check in your writing based on the comments you have received on graded essays. Most often, an aspect of your writing that was weak on earlier essays will not get stronger unless you decide to focus on trying to make that aspect stronger. That s all for now, but please look at your sentences carefully to discover ways to make the sentences even better! 5