Style

Style makes sentences sound either pleasing or awkward, clear or confusing. After the list of basic style tips, we talk in depth about five stylistic elements: active/passive voice, wordiness, formality, inclusive language, and word choice.

Basic style advice

The following is a list of basic style advice. These principles can improve even professional writing. The extended list was compiled by the RC staff.

In general, prefer the following to other options:

• Use strong and specific verbs.
• Prefer active voice to passive.
• Structure sentences so that they move from old to new information—with climactic emphasis.
• Choose a level of formality appropriate for the genre.
• Observe disciplinary and generic conventions—unless you have good reason to do otherwise.
• Avoid the “little qualifiers,” e.g., “a bit,” “rather,” “quite,” “very.”
• Avoid nominalizations (a word that is normally not a noun, being used as a noun).
• Prefer brevity.
• Prefer inclusive language.
• Vary sentence structure and type.
• Word choices: do you actually know what this word means and is it the best possible choice?

In addition, you can continue working on style in the Rhetoric Center, and you can use this resource created by The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The sections titled “Verb trouble,” and “Ostentatious erudition” are especially helpful.

Example

Listen for an examination of the style-conscious passage below.

Ever since people have been making apologies for the wicked and foolish things they do, apology speeches have been important. And one might further say that first and foremost an apology speech must extol the virtue of sincerity. And furthermore, it is in the individual choices of language, choices that make up the apology itself, that one can find success or failure with respect to one’s audience for an apology. It is indeed monumentally difficult, in the course, of a single speech, to win back the trust of people to whom trust has been most sadly lost. One can listen to many an apology and yet be stricken with the concern about whether one can know with a sufficient level of confidence that the apologizing person is not prolonging to tell a lie. It is therefore the case that Clinton chose to confront his religious audience at the prayer breakfast with phrases that are religious in their tone and content. Another point is that Clinton specifically asked his religious audience to pray for him. Former President Clinton even goes so far as to quote from texts that are important to people from a variety of religious traditions. These traditions include the Jewish people, Roman Catholic Christians, and Bible-conscious Christians. It is in this way that the former president appeals to his audience of religious individuals with a message of religiousness.

Since a personal apology, by its very nature, must be sincere, Clinton’s stylistic choices prove as important as his content. Mending broken trust is a nearly impossible task. While an apology may sound good, how can we be sure that the person is not still lying? Sensitive to his immediate audience [people at the prayer breakfast], Clinton often speaks in religious terms. Toward the beginning of his address, he invokes clerical vocabulary by using language such as “repentance,” a “broken spirit,” and “forgiveness.” Acknowledging the fact that repentance takes time, Clinton asks for prayer in helping him and the country move forward. Clinton further reaches out to his immediate audience by quoting a passage from the Yom Kippur liturgy, appealing to the Jewish members of his audience. Clinton then ends his speech by combining phrases from a prayer of Saint Francis and the Bible, leaving his religiously minded immediate audience with spiritual themes.

Active and passive voice

Understanding the active and passive voices will improve your writing. Sometimes a professor may explicitly ask for one of the two voices; other times just knowing the advantages of both will allow you to create more interesting sentences.

Active voice is when the subject (or actor) performs the action (the verb). Passive is when the subject is acted upon. If you’re having trouble finding the subject, use this resource.

It may help to see the same sentence in both active voice and passive.

• Active: Johnny climbed the mountain.
• Passive: The mountain was climbed by Johnny.

Active voice makes sentences lively and concise. For these reasons, most academic environments prefer the active voice. However, contrary to the opinion of many high school English courses, passive voice isn’t “bad,” you just have to know when and how to use it.

As a rule of thumb, if you can add “by a purple dinosaur” (or another “by phrase”) to the end of the sentence and it still makes sense, it’s most likely passive voice.

Passive voice is useful when you don’t care who or what took the action. For example, in the passive sentence about the mountain, we can write “The mountain was climbed.” This sentence remains passive, but leaves off the subject/actor (Johnny). But knowing who climbed the mountain is essential to the story of that sentence, so passive voice ruins the sentence.

But leaving off the subject can be necessary in scientific fields, because what matters to the sciences is what happens, not who did it. For example, a scientific report might say that “Ten mg of magnesium was added to the substrate.” Here it really doesn’t matter who added the magnesium.

Use “Passive Voice” by The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an additional resource on active and passive voice.

Avoiding wordiness

Avoiding wordiness is important to good writing because it ensures clarity, and it makes a piece of writing easier to read. Sometimes, on the sentence level, we use too many words; eliminating unnecessary words will improve most writing.

Though they can be easily confused, wordiness and length are separate issues. You can have a concise fifty-page paper. Simultaneously, you can have a wordy five-page paper.

This article by Judith Kilborn (The Write Place, St. Cloud State University) provides a few ways to reduce wordiness. Pay attention to the bolded sentences; these are the principles for removing wordiness. If you’re in a rush, here a few principles summarized:

• Omit unnecessary modifiers. There is no need to say “red strawberry” since strawberries are red. Therefore, you can omit “red.”
• Omit filler words (it is, there are, since the beginning of time).
• Use active voice; it tends to be more concise.
• Prefer one-word modifiers to prepositional phrases (see article for details).
• Sometimes every word is necessary but the sentence is visually straining. In these cases, break the sentence into multiple sentences.

Example

There are so many different major options that a student at Calvin could possibly major in while they are at Calvin.

Calvin students choose from among 100+ majors.

Multiple principles have been applied to decrease wordiness. “So” was removed because it was an unnecessary modifier and it did not change the sentence by modifying “many.” The sentence was made active to reduce wording and for stylistic purposes.

Formality

Our audience and occasion dictates our formality. When we text our friends, we use a different tone, vocabulary, and style than we do when we write a formal research paper for a teacher. When we talk to a friend at her grandmother’s funeral, we use a different style than we do when joking at a restaurant.

Formality is a spectrum, so there is no “this is formal” and “this is not formal.” Instead of a dogmatic formula, you should consider the degree of formality that you create when writing.

In academic settings there is little disadvantage when preferring formality to informality. When your audience calls for a more formal writing style, here is a list of principles you should tend to prefer to alternatives:

• Avoid slang.
• Don’t refer to the paper as a paper (i.e., do not acknowledge in the paper that you are writing a paper).
• Avoid writing in the first person (“I”).
• Avoid personal stories or anecdotes.
• Avoid contractions.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the choices we recommended avoiding. However, certain audiences consider them informal. And, at the end of the day, what your audience considers formal or informal is how that audience will judge your level of formality.

Resources related to formality

• The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: A resource about when to and when not to use the first-person pronoun “I.”
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): Examples of three different levels of formality applied to the same passage.
• University Writing Center, University of Nevada, Reno: Click on the link “Academic Voice” and scroll down to the “Formal vs Informal” section. It’s a list of helpful tips on how to write more formally. The rest of the document is geared towards writing in a formal, academic voice; this may prove helpful as well.
• Smrt English: a live class going over things to avoid when writing to a professional or academic audience.

Inclusive language

Our language affects our communities. Because of the power of language, The Rhetoric Center remains committed to using and encouraging inclusive language.

This commitment includes all language that may be offensive to any members within or outside of the Calvin community.

In particular, writers should be aware of language that may be offensive (or exclusive) to members of a specific gender, race, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation.

For a resource on writing with a inclusive focus, see Calvin University's Editorial Style Guide.

The alternative, exclusive language, has the ability to neglect, demean, offend, and dishonor people. These negative effects deserve condemnation.

For further investigation into inclusive language, use The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The examples are particularly helpful because they demonstrate the simplicity of inclusive language.

Word choice

Experienced writers carefully choose their words. They think about the meaning of the words, how they use words, and even how words sound.

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” -Mark Twain

General advice

In general, follow the advice below:

• Only use a word if you’re sure of what it means.
• Don’t use words just because they are bigger. Read “Ostentatious erudition,” the section near the bottom of the page, from The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Instead, use words that are precise. Precise words create better imagery.
• Avoid vague words, unless you specifically want to indicate a sense of vagueness.
• Make sure you’re using the correct form of the word. Don’t use the noun form when you're supposed to use the verb form, or the other way around.
• Avoid jargon. Instead of saying “to validate the premise set in advance by the committee,” the phrase “Town Hall approved our proposition” works just fine and loses no meaning.
• Avoid clichés.
• Avoid phrasal verbs.
• Avoid nominalizations (a word that is normally not a noun, being used as a noun).

Resources related to word choice

• The Thesaurus: a tool for finding similar words. Use this wisely and sparingly. Don’t just settle on the biggest and fanciest word; demand the most accurate word.
• The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: a general resource for word choice.
• AIMS Community College, Online Writing Lab: a list of tips for improving word choice.
• Trump vs Brand, The Power of Words: An analysis of how Donald Trump and Russell Brand use words differently.

Mistakes in word usage

Some words are commonly used in improper ways. As a writer, using a word incorrectly takes away from you credibility. Here is a list of words that are commonly used incorrectly, along with the correct usage of the word.

Affect vs effect

Affect means to influence or act upon. Effect means result. In general, affect is used as a verb and effect as a noun. However, sometimes effect can used as a verb.

Lay vs lie

You lie down. You lay something down.

Example 1: I am going to lie down.

Example 2: I’ll lay down the remote when you promise not to pick it up.

If you’re still confused, remember this: lay is a transitive verb. This means that it must have an object. Lie doesn’t need an object.

There, their, and they’re

There refers to a place (i.e. “over there.”) Their is a possessive pronoun, like my or your (i.e. “Their car is new.”) They’re means “they are.”

Who vs whom

Who is used as a subject, and whom as an object. Sometimes in speech or informal writing, “who” is accepted for both uses.

Example 1: Who is Maya going to marry?

Example 2: Maya is married to whom?

For further questions about usage, we recommend The American Heritage Dictionary.

Sound

Consider how words sound. Some words simply sound ugly, and others, appealing. Choose words whose sound matches your message.

The words “sexy” and “pulchritudinous” are both adjectives that refer to physical beauty, however “pulchritudinous” isn’t a pleasant sounding word. It’s actually the opposite, a beastly sounding word. Words that refer to beauty shouldn’t sound so hideous. Sexy, on the other hand, sounds, well, sexy.

There are uses for certain ugly sounding words. The word “putrid,” most people would agree, doesn’t sound or look pleasing. This fits the word’s definition: “decomposed and foul smelling.” Therefore, when you’re using this word, the word has the same effect as its definition, unlike the example above.

And beautiful words come in handy. The words “green” and “pleasant” swell the rich tones in the phrase “England’s green and pleasant land” (“Jerusalem,” William Blake). “Green” and “pleasant” resonate (another fine word) with the “E” in England and the “an” in England and in “land.”

Richard Brody, long time journalist and film critic for The New Yorker, demonstrates careful use of the sound of words in his article “What the Seven ‘Star Wars’ Films Reveal About George Lucas.” In Brody’s first paragraph alone, he uses words strategically paired together for alliteration and accurateness: “retroactive recognition,” “cultural counterparts,” and “personal pantheon.”

Remember to consider how words sound.

Resources Related to the Sounds of Words

• Khan Academy: Assonance, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. No, this resource isn’t just for poets.
• Lessons from Steven Pinker: these seven writing style lessons will anyone improve their style. Tips two and three relate to the sounds of words.
• Daily Writing Tips: seven sound techniques.