Diction is word choice. Syntax is sentence construction. Style is the pattern the two make, in a writer’s work and in yours.
Reading for style
Ask four questions of any passage:
- What kind of words? Concrete or abstract, plain or Latinate, formal or colloquial.
- How long are the sentences, and how varied?
- What is the ratio of verbs to adjectives? Verb-driven prose moves; adjective-driven prose describes.
- What is repeated? Sound, structure, and word.
Writing with style rather than about it
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| It is evident that Shakespeare utilises | Shakespeare gives |
| In today’s modern society | (delete, start with the point) |
| very important | the specific claim: decisive, load-bearing, the hinge of the scene |
| A string of eight-word sentences | Vary: one long, one short. The short one is the point |
Register
Formality is a choice you make about a situation, not a level you are stuck on. The register of a seminar, an essay, a news report, and a text message should all be different, and moving between them deliberately is a marked skill in this course — see The Literacy Test for two of them side by side.
Reading your own draft for style
Read it aloud. Mark every sentence you had to take a second breath in. Mark every sentence that begins the same way as the one before. Those two marks will improve a draft more than an hour of adding adjectives.
Curriculum connection
C2.2
establish a distinctive voice in their writing, modifying language and tone skilfully to suit the form, audience, and purpose for writing (e.g., rewrite a story by a favourite author, adopting the point of view and voice of a character other than the original narrator, or of an entirely new character; use a formal, impersonal voice in an essay to communicate their intention to maintain objectivity; use imagery that reveals or reflects their mood or attitude in a lyrical free verse poem)
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C2.3
use appropriate descriptive and evocative words, phrases, and expressions to make their writing clear, vivid, and interesting for their intended audience (e.g., identify concrete, specific words they can use to depict objects and events vividly and with exactness; identify long-winded expressions they can replace with more concise language)
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C3.4
use grammar conventions correctly and appropriately to communicate their intended meaning clearly and fluently (e.g., construct a variety of phrases and clauses and arrange them appropriately to write complete and correct simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences; select verb tenses appropriate to the particular context; make subjects and verbs agree; make pronouns agree with their antecedents)
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C2.6
revise drafts to improve the content, organization, clarity, and style of their written work, using a variety of teacher-modelled strategies (e.g., reinforce a mood or feeling by sharpening the focus of the imagery and other rhetorical devices in a poem or short story; identify and remove redundancies and clarify or expand supporting details; rearrange ideas to improve parallel structure in a comparison and contrast essay)
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C3.3
use punctuation correctly and appropriately to communicate their intended meaning (e.g., use the semicolon to separate independent clauses and items in a list that contain sublists separated by commas; use underlining or italics to indicate book titles; use quotation marks to indicate titles of shorter works)
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