All writers take special care in creating a special arrangement
of and relationship with words. Understanding the slight or delicate
variations of syntax, and the effect it creates, or the purpose it fulfills
is crucial to understanding a passage. Make a section in your journal
for each of the following categories of syntax and add examples to each
category as you discover them through reading, listening, observing, and
sensing life around you.
Experiment with improving your style by adding more of these interesting
sentence structures to your own writing; however, heed Daniel Defoe's
warning: The perfect style is one "in which a man speaking to five
hundred people, of all common and various capacities, Idiots and Lunatics
excepted, should be understood by them all."
Parentheses:
The parenthesis are used to whisper a witty aside to the reader.
Note how the parenthesis in each of the following examples makes the remark
seem more confidential:
"When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the
referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous
laughter." George Orwell
"Tourists . . . swarm all over the Statue of Liberty (where many
a resident of the town has never set foot), they invade the Auto mat, visit
radio stations, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and they window shop."
E. B. White
"Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!)
on this subject." Jane Austen
"In a trice (which, in Bangladesh, is two and a half hours) we were
back in our hired cab." P. J. O'Rourke
"The hoses were set much alike between distance and tenderness of
spray (and quite surely a sense of art behind this compromise, and
a quiet deep joy, too real to recognize itself), and the sounds therefore
were pitched much alike." James Agee
"The words promised that I would not (yet) be alone." John
Berger
"Most of the recent propaganda about pit bullsóthe
crazy claim that they 'take hold with their front teeth while they chew
away with their rear teeth' (which would imply, incorrectly, that they
have double jaws)ócan be traced to literature
published by the Humane Society of the United States during the fall of
1987 and earlier." Vicki Hearne
Add a parenthesis to the following sentence correctly:
"One may speak the same language but in such a way that one's antecedents
are revealed or one hopes hidden." James Baldwin
Add more of your own in your journals you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you.
The Dash:
The dash is a sentence interrupter used to announce a series, or
elaborate on a previously stated general idea. When this second strategy
is used, the meaning of the sentence changes drastically. In fact,
many times good writers will use a dash to create an anomaly, a departure
from the expected, an abnormality. Note how the dashes in the following
examples create an unexpected meaning or satire.
"The chamber of commerce was in the Motijheel Commercial Area, right
around the corneróand therefore thirty or
forty minutes awayófrom the Biman airline
office." P. J. O'Rourke
"There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
compels the strangerís admirationóand regret.
" Mark Twain
"In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of peopleóthe
only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen
to me." George Orwell
"The black and bottomless pool gleams in the shining rockóa
sinister paradox, to a fanciful mind." Edward Abbey
"It is now fast becoming a traditionóif
one can use that word to describe a habit about which I feel a certain
amount of shamefacednessófor our household
to watch the Miss America contest on television every year."
Gerald Early
Punctuate the following sentence correctly:
"The day happened to be magnificent the finest of the year"
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you.
The Colon:
The colon is used to announce. Notice how the opening statement
in the following examples prepare the reader for an announcement which
flows smoothly after the colon.
"I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. It went like
this: Fault: Deficiency, lack, want of something . . ."
Meena Alexander
"I was right about the tar: it led to within half a mile of
the shore." E. B. White
"My voice splintered in my ears into a cacophony: whispering
cadences, shouts, moans, the quick delight of bodily pleasure, all rising
up as if the condition of being fractured had freed the selves jammed into
my skin, multiple beings locked into the journeys of one body."
Meena Alexander
"All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior
man: its one permanent object is to police him and cripple him."
H. L. Mencken
Punctuate the following sentence correctly:
"By the time we had reached the top of the long ridge on which my
cousin had set his traps the morning had slipped toward noon and our count
had risen to seven animals three raccoons three skunks and the pregnant
fox." T. H. Watkins
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you.
The Semicolon:
The semicolon is used to separate different but related sentences.
Notice how the semicolons in the following examples also create balanced
expressions.
"But the poor lady was wrong; it was not a swan that they had
hatched; it was an eagle." Lytton Stratchey
"I have in my own life a precious friend, a woman of sixty five who
has lived very hard, who is wise; who listens well; who has
been where I am and can help me understand it; an who represents
not only an ultimate ideal mother to me but also the person I'd like to
be when I grow up." Judith Viorst
Punctuate the following sentence correctly:
"In a rural family practice such as mine much of every workday is
taken up with disease I look forward to the prenatal visit with Barb to
the continuing relationship with her over the next months to the prospect
of birth."
Add more of your own as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Parallelism:
Parallelism is the repetition of similar beginnings to create balanced
expressions. This is done when the writer wants to express a pair
or series of ideas. Making each item parallel--making each item look
alike grammaticallyóprovides emphasis and
establishes rhythm and balance.
One of the most powerful aspects of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address
was his use of parallel expressions. Notice how the repeated verbs
in following two sentences create parallelism.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hard ship, support any friend,
oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
"Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate
disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce."
Notice how the repetition of the infinitive (to plus a different
verb) in following sentence creates parallelism.
"To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations,
our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced
the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of supportóto
prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invectiveóto
strengthen its shield of the new and the weakóand
to enlarge the area in which its writ may run."
For each of the following sentences,
provide parallel expressions that logically complete the thought:
1. Propaganda is a systematic effort to influence people's
opinions, to_____, or to _____.
2. He spends most of his evenings sitting on the couch, watching
TV, and_____.
Add more of your own as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Prepositions:
Commonly Used Prepositions
about
between
over
above
beyond
past
across
but
since
after
by
through
against
concerning throughout
along
down
to
amid
during
toward
among
except
under
around
for
underneath
at
from
until
before
in
unto
behind
into
up
below
like
upon
beneath
of
with
beside
off
within
besides
on
without
Prepositions are used by good writers to interrupt or end the sentence
with lively description. Note the examples:
" The train smells of oil and soot and orange peels and lurches groggily
as we rock our way inland." Joy Kogawa
"I remember a horse I rode for a while named Targhee whose Hocks
were scarred from tangles in barbed wire when he was a colt and who spooked
a lot in high grass." Barry Lopez
"In the city we see entropy in the rundown subways and worn-out sidewalks
and torn-down buildings, in the increasing disorder of our lives."
K. C. Cole
"Inside, on the shelf next to the ice-cube-tray compartment, is a
row of tall stemmed dessert glasses, each one filled with its own golden
dollop of butterscotch pudding." Sue Hubbel
Add more of your own in your journals you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
The Appositive:
An appositive is another noun, set off by double commas or dashes,
that renames the subject. Notice how the appositives in the examples
that follow, add additional information to the person, place, or thing
just mentioned.
"Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that
plays a remarkably large role in government." Barbara Tuchman
"I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park,
a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section
of Chicago." Brent Staples
"Mama's houseóa place built for childrenówhere
anything that could be broken had already been broken by my grandmother's
early batch of offspring." Judith Ortiz Coffer
Combine each of the following groups of related sentences or phrases
together
by making one new sentence with an appositive:
1. "Name calling is a propaganda technique in which negatively
charged names are hurled against the opposing side or competitor.
By using such names, propagandists try to arouse feelings of mistrust,
fear, and hate in their audience." Ann McClintock
2. "Guns are a particularly sensitive topic for parents, and
many of us feel uncomfortable when our children lust for the plastic ones."
Jean Marzollo
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Participle Phrases:
Participle phrases beginning with a word ending in "ing." Notice
how the participle phrases in the following examples add more information
to the noun of the sentence.
"We found a sleepy hillside and sprawled out on it, soaking up the
early-spring sunshine." Gretel Ehlrich
"On the broad lobby desk, lighted and bubbling, was a ten-gallon
aquarium containing one large fish . . ." Annie Dillard
"Madame Bovary was hovering over the cosmetics counters, clutching
the current issue of Cosmopolitan." Francine du Plessix Gray
"Hiking the tree-lined streets of our St. Louis borough en route
to school, I felt common names spring up in my mouth, waving their leafy
syllables." Naomi Shihab Nye
"My friend Danny Chapman, the Ringling Bros. clown, had a sliding,
circus sort of face, marked by the sun, wind, pain, bad luck and
bad dealings, the standard lusts and equivocations, like a stone the water
had slid over for sixty years." Edward Hoaglund
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Absolute Phrases:
Absolute phrases are made of nouns or pronouns followed by a participle
and any modifiers of the noun or pronoun. Absolute phrases contain a subject
(unlike participial phrases), and no predicate. Usually set off by
commas, they modify an entire sentence rather than a specific word.
Joan looked nervous, her fears creeping up on her.
noun/subject: her fears
participle: creeping
modifier: up on her
absolute phrase: her fears creeping up on her
Tom paled when he came home, his mother standing in the doorway.
noun/subject: his mother
participle: standing
modifier: in the doorway
absolute phrase: his mother standing in the doorway
Formula for an Absolute Phrase = noun/pronoun + participle + modifiers
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Cumulative Sentences:
A cumulative sentence is one in which the emendations are added after
the main clause is completed. In the following example, the main
sentenceóthe underlined portionócomes
first, and is followed by a number of descriptive phrases.
"I could live two days in a den, curled, leaning on mouse
fur, sniffing bird bones, blinking, licking, breathing musk, my hair tangled
in the roots of grasses." Annie Dillard
Underline the main sentence in the following examples of cumulative
sentence structure:
"While she ate, I watched the clouds of blue butterfliesóspring
azuresósqueezing into nearly opened blackberry
blossoms to lay their eggs." Sue Hubbel
"We held our breaths, imagining a crash as the parts clanged together,
or a terrible disaster if the piece were to slip loose." Naomi
Shihab Nye
"The Greek woman is short and heavy, waistless, and is wearing a
black dress, a black scarf pulled low around her eyes, a black sweater,
thick black stockings, black shoes." Alice Bloom
Combine the following three related sentences to make one cumulative
sentence.
"My truck is named Dodge. The name came with it. I don't
know if it was named after the verb or the man who invented it."
Barry Lopez
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Periodic Sentences:
A periodic sentence is one in which the emendations are added before
the main clause is completed. In the following example, the main
sentenceóthe underlined portionócomes
last, and is preceded by a number of descriptive phrases.
"Curled, leaning on mouse fur, sniffing bird bones, blinking, licking,
breathing musk, my hair tangled in the roots of grasses, I could live
two days in a den." Annie Dillard
Underline the main sentence in the following examples of periodic
sentence structure:
"By the last day of the tour, when a limousine picked me up at my
Beverly Hills hotel for my last round of satellite TV interviews, I knew
I had to stop." Randy Shilts
"In our constitution and the works of law, philosophy, social thought,
and science, in its every day uses in the service of justice and clarity,
what I call the father tongue is immensely noble and indispensably useful."
Ursula K LeGuin
"Long before I am near enough to talk to you on the street, in a
meeting, or at a party, you announce your sex, age, and class to me through
what you are wearing." Alison Lurie
"Ten years ago, when I first noticed the symptoms that would be diagnosed
as MS, I was probably looking my best." Nancy Mairs
"Three thousand miles to the west, where I live now, on a much-traveled
hill road winding eastward from the coast, there is a standing pipe called
the Lombardi Spring." Adrienne Rich
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Strung-along Sentences:
A strung-along sentence is one in which the emendations are added
in the middle, separating the main clause into two parts. These emendations
can come in the form of absolute phrases, participle phrases, prepositions,
gerunds, etc. and can be punctuated with a colon, a comma, a double comma,
a dash, parentheses, etc. Here is an example:
"I have the impression that many people, if they think of this
city at all, consider Duluth a cold kind of joke, a Peoria of the North,
the last outpost on the northernmost edge of the middle of nowhere."
Barton Sutter
Emend simple sentence patterns to create more mature constructions.
Think of the basic elements of the sentence, the subject, verb, and object.
Add words to describe these basic elements. The result is an immediately
more mature and graceful sentence. Examples:
Basic sentence: John participated in football.
Emendation: John, the 145 pound weakling, cautiously participated
in the barbaric game of football.
Basic sentence: Emerson believes that adversity is a blessing.
Emendation: Emerson, a respected essayist and philosopher,
believes that adversity, even incredible misfortunes, can turn into
blessing.
Basic sentence: Our society has prejudices.
Emendation: Our society, both as a country and internationally,
has prejudices--preconceptions, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, and even
blatant bigotry--that we need to overcome.
Basic sentence: These people have a variety of personalities.
Emendation: Although not representing the average person,
these people tend to possess a strong insight based on the variety of their
personalities.
Basic sentence: This can occur on a smaller level, too.
Emendation: This influence of man on nature can also commonly
occur on a smaller, less scientific level.
Now you try some:
Basic sentence: Love strikes when least expected.
Emendation:
Basic sentence: Every culture has a differing view on morality.
Emendation:
Basic sentence: Often religion becomes a convenience.
Emendation:
Basic sentence: Most literature supports a belief in creation.
Emendation:
Basic sentence: A friend portrays good listening habits.
Emendation:
Add more of your own as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Conciseness:
Most of the suggestions thus far have been ways to make longer
sentences by combining or emending shorter ones. At the same time,
it must be cautioned that every word added must add a new meaning in the
sentence. Note the conciseness of the following two examples:
"Above and below the ship, this blue." John Blight
"After the sea, the harbor." Edgar Daniel Karma
Many times the end result of ìemendationî is wordiness, rather than
gracefulness.
Correct the following emendations by crossing out all unnecessary
words.
The only way, pure and simple, to remain satisfied and content with
the government, politics, and politicians is to remain, as always, involved
by reading and perusing newspapers, exercising your voting rights, etc.
and simply not letting the politicians own you.
The rise upward of most modern successful champions is almost, but
not always, accompanied hand in hand by proud arrogance and awfully disdainful
behaviors.
Love, in retrospect, is a very strong, powerful emotional feeling
that does not spontaneously occur each and every day of the year.
In a way everybodyóevery man, woman,
and childóevery personófear,
to some degree, greatly or not, some aspect of death that affects their
own life personally.
A uniquely unusual young man in his teens named Joe enjoyed savoring
the essenceóthe mouth-watering smellóof
slow-cooked bacon during a fancy luxury continental breakfast at the local,
drab, leaky-roofed hotel, while wearing bell-bottoms and a polyester plaid
shirt.
Repetition:
The conciseness exercise implies that every repeated word is unnecessary.
We all know that is not true. Sometimes repeated words are
necessary for emphasis. Sometimes repetition is needed in the topic
sentences so that they echo the thesis more clearly. But perhaps
the most graceful use is the subtle repetition of an idea. In the
essay "Dull and Out of It" from Cold Comfort, Life at the Top
of the Map , Barton Sutter refers to Duluth as "the last outpost on
the northernmost edge of the middle of nowhere." Elsewhere
in his collection of essays called Cold Comfort, he refers to Duluth
as "the northern edge of the known universe." Notice how Sutterís
changed description of the repeated idea adds to his description of Duluthís
remoteness. Can you make other phrases that would similarly describe
the isolation of Duluth?
Variety:
The best practice for variety is to revisit an old essay and change
the wording so that a better variety exists by beginning in more ways than
Subject first. Use the following suggestions:
A. Begin with an adverb:
a word
that describes the action of the sentence. Other neat adverbs can
be found in the chapter on DICTION.
Here are some examples:
"Exactly why the Germans banished intelligence is a vast and largely
unanswered question." Neil Postman
"Now, three years later, after the last bad fall, she had managed
to forget the fatigue and loneliness and, in these free-wheeled excursions
back through time, to capture happiness." Russell Baker
"Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw
me rise." Langston Hughes
"How much we need, and how arduous of attainment is that steadiness
preached in all rules for holy living. How desirable and distant
is the ideal of the contemplative, artist, or saint--the inner inviolable
core, the single eye." Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and
that it will have more unexpected turns than they think." William
Zinsser
"Never in my life have I gotten the attention of a waiter, unless
it was an off-duty waiter whose car I'd accidentally scraped in a parking
lot somewhere." Barbara Ehrenreich
Practice beginning with an "ly" word by doing the exercise which
follows:
Begin with the word "Normally" followed by an adjective that names
a personality trait, then describe a behavior you find yourself doing that
contradicts that trait.
Example: Normally rather restrained, I found myself speaking to everyone
I met.
Use words like the following to fill in the blank: combative,
energetic, belligerent, enterprising, adventurous, venturesome, resourceful,
alert, lethargic, studious, reflective, conversable, cordial, debonair,
sportive, frivolous, rattle-brained, flighty, auspicious, flippant, reliable,
trustworthy, unfailing, steady, uncertain, clamorous, imperious, ambitious,
insistent, apprehensive, solicitous, phobic, timorous, diffident, tremulous,
fainthearted, penitent, conscience-smitten, rational, judicious, flexible,
etc. (The list is never-ending. You can probably pick better
ones.)
Your turn:
Normally _____, I found myself ________________________
____________________________________________________.
B. Begin with an adjective:
Any
of the words listed in the assignment described above are adjectives since
they describe people. Begin a sentence with one of those words or
with any word that describes some other person, place or thing in the same
sentence. Other neat adjectives can be found in the chapter on DICTION.
Here are some examples:
"Subdued, resigned, Papa's lifeóall
our livesótook on a pattern that would hold
for the duration of the war." Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
"This frail boy bent under his load said more to me about poverty
than a dozen poor fathers." Gordon Parks
"These hopeless end-of-the-line visits with my mother made me wish
I had not thrown off my own past so carelessly." Russell Baker
"Vague as this definition may be, I believe most people are aware
of periods in their lives when they seem to be 'in grace' and other periods
in their lives when they feel 'out of grace,' even though they may use
different words to describe these states." Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
"Long gone are the days of the "gentleman's C," when students journeyed
through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses--music,
art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religionóthat
would send them out as liberally educated men and women." William Zinsser
"An unscrupulous theatrical producer has figured out that it is relatively
easy to turn a buck by producing a play that fails." Neil Postman
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
C. Begin with an infinitive:
Here
are some examples:
"To explain what I am getting at, I find it helpful to refer to two
films, which taken together embody the main lines of my argument."
Neil Postman
"To provide some verification of this, I conducted a survey a few
years back on the subject of the Iranian hostage crisis." Neil
Postman
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
D. Begin with a subordinate clause:
Commonly used Subordinate Conjunctions:
after, although, as, as much as, because, before,
how, if, in order that, inasmuch as, provided, since,
than, that, though, unless, until, when, where, while.
Here are some examples:
"Although there was no evidence of subversion, soon after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the expulsion
of West Coast Japanese-Americansómany of them
born in this countryófrom their homes and
businesses." Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
"When she was young, with life ahead of her, I had been her future
and resented it." Russell Baker
"When you are inside the jungle, away from the river, the trees vault
out of sight." Annie Dillard
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
E. Begin with a gerund:
Begin
with a verb form (ending in "ing") that acts as the subject of the sentence.
Here are some examples:
Acting responsibly is an important concept to consider when discovering
freedom.
"Looking at it, holding it, thinking of things to do with it displace
other activities once thought essential." Neil Postman
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
F. Begin with a participle phrase: Here
are some examples:
"Breathing hard, balancing a tin of water on his head, a small boy
climbed toward us." Gordon Parks
"Sitting at her bedside, forever out of touch with her, I wondered
about my own children, and their children, and children in general, and
about the disconnections between children and parents that prevent them
from knowing each other." Russell Baker
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
G. Begin with a list of noun phrases:
Here
are some examples:
"The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups,
the grey, cowed faces of the long term convicts, the scarred buttocks of
the men who had been flogged with bamboosóall
these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt."
George Orwell
"Each whorl, each faint knob, each criss-cross vein in its egg-shell
texture, is as clearly defined as on the day of creation." Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
Now try some of your own.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.
Short and Simple Sentences:
For variety and a change in pace, shorter sentences are needed.
One way to do this is to combine a few two or three word sentences into
one. This is called a short and simple sentence. Examples follow:
"He ruminates, he dreams, he remembers." Malcolm Cowley
No minors, no food, no pets. (Motel Notice)
"The baby frets, the maid sulks." Joan Didion
Another way to shorten sentences is to write a simple sentence with
compound parts. The result is a fast-paced sentence with parallel
parts. Examples follow:
"The M.P., the soldiers, the turnkey, and the girl on the beach are
white." John McPhee
"Nature has no sense of humor: In its beauty, as in its ugliness,
or in its neutrality, there is no laughter." Joyce Carol Oates
"The student comes to his desk. On it, neatly arranged by the
instructor, he finds his laboratory manual, a dissecting board, instruments,
and a mimeographed list." Walker Percy
"Its as simpleóand as threatenedóas
that." Adrienne Rich
"The facts are a mess. They are filled with gaps, chuck holes,
switch backs, and dead ends--just like life." Scott Russell Sanders
Yet another way to shorten sentence structure is to add two really
short sentences together with a comma.
ìThey were alone, no one had seen them.î Fyodor Dostoevsky
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
Inverted Sentences:
The following sentences are called inverted because the natural order
is switched. This is usually done for emphasis, but always creates
variety. Note the list of examples that follow:
Had he and I but met.óHad we but world
enough, and time.óI ought before this to have
replyíd.óBackward we look regretful, forward
we glance with regret.óBefore my face the
picture hangs.óBite deep and wide, o axe,
the tree.óBy the side of a murmuring stream
a gentleman sat.óThe earth with thunder torn.óat
dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shoneóForward
the crackling lashes send.óFrom a frightened
face I flee.
Add more of your own in your journal as you discover them through
reading, listening, observing, and sensing life around you:
This information came from the book written by Duane Earnest
called the
School House
Books Advanced Placement English (AP) WRITER
