What good do your words do, if they can't understand you? : Grammar, Style & Syntax

Brandi Bradley
Feb 4, 2019
8 min read

This week is conference week for P1 Draft 1. I will be meeting with you via Google Hangout just like our first meeting. We will talk for 20 minutes and you will take the feedback I give you to revise your paper for Draft 2. Forgot your conference time, check the Sign Up Genius form.

This week's Twitter Assignment is: Create a thread where you explain what you learned about writing and research when putting together Project #1 and what advice you would give to yourself if you were asked to start over.

All jobs are writing jobs.

In any career that you will select, you will need to put down words in order to communicate. If you are a doctor, you will be expected to be published in a medical journal or to submit messages to your support staff. If you are an engineer, you will be asked to write grants in order to fund your research. Lawyers can write 150 pages or more a week. Business plans, reports, charting, emails, memos: these are all formal writing that almost all professions require. Everyone is a writer.

In this class, as you have undoubtedly realized, we will be writing. We will use words to express ideas. However, we will also be using sounds and images if necessary to express ideas. Let’s go ahead and demystify the word Writer. If you sent a text message this morning then you are a writer. You used words to convey a message. You wrote. You are a writer.

Now that we have established that you are a writer and that this writing thing is a thing you will do for the remainder of your life, we need to get you properly set up. We need to set up a toolbox.

What is a writing toolbox? First, read this selection from Stephen King, from his memoir On Writing.

Now ask yourself what is in your Toolbox?

Now, I will present to you a few more things to add.

When putting together Project #1, students often rely on how they were instructed to write essays in high school. Many students were taught to write timed essays for the SAT and ACT exams to be accepted into college. As you have probably already picked up on, ENC2135 is not like high school. At one point and time, another instructor might have taken you through some grammar exercises and encouraged you to dazzle your readers with witty word play, alliteration and a playful voice.

I am going to ask you to stop doing that. I'm not easily dazzled. I don't believe that you must dazzle your reader in order to be a great writer. Great writers clearly communicate a message through the use of words. I am going to preach this again and again: simple sentences which are easy for people to understand are always better than dazzling sentences which are confusing, vague or complicated.

The sentence is the key.

A sentence needs:

a subject - who the sentence is about
a predicate - what the subject is doing (this is where you will locate your verb)

The subject could be a single word - Avocados rot on the counter.

Or a subject could be many words in the form of a compound subject -

Avocados and peaches rot on the counter.

The predicate is the action, the motion, the interesting part - Avocados rot on the counter. Sometimes a predicate also contains a Compliment, an addition element which clarifies the verb. This predicate contains a verb and a prepositional phrase which explains where the action is occurring. Avocados rot on the counter.

Predicates can also contain multiple verbs. You would label that a compound predicate. Avocados shrivel and rot on the counter.

In this example sentence, I could have written: Avocados go bad on the counter. It's the same thing, right? Except "go bad" is two words while "rot" is one word. Not only does the word rot condense the sentence, but it also provides a more specific description of what is happening. For something to rot, that image evokes not only the sight of the decaying---shriveled black avocados---but also the smell of putrid fruit or the added image of circling gnats.

When you have a subject and a predicate and another subject and a predicate, that is a compound sentence.

Each subject and predicate combination are clauses. Sometimes you have clauses which are independent of each other. This means they don't have to be together to make sense. She fondled his shoes and she caressed his socks. You can separate these into two sentences: She fondled his shoes. She caressed his socks. These are independent clauses.

However, sometimes clauses depend on each other. They are besties and cannot be without each other. She fondled his shoes before she caressed his socks. See how the word Before creates this unbreakable bond between the clauses. It explains in what order events occurred.

Try this example:

If this is love, I've made a terrible mistake.

See how the first clause depends on the second in order to make sense. If this is love. What does that even mean. You need more. You need: I've made a terrible mistake.

Some clauses are necessary to compliment a noun. These are adjective clauses. Consider this sentence: Everyone who went to the restaurant vomited on the way home.

Everyone {who ate at McDonalds} vomited on the way home. If you remove the adjective clause, it is still a complete sentence, but it doesn't make sense. If you write, "Everyone vomited on the way home," and your reader is going to freak out because they don't understand the circumstances, "Why? Where? I don't want to go there!!" This works for clauses which complement verbs, too.

Consider this sentence: Unless I am mistaken, I've already heard this lecture.

{Unless I am mistaken}, I've already heard this lecture.

Usually adjective clauses are used to determine cause, comparison, concession, condition, manner, place, purpose, result, or time.

You might not have a clause. You might simply have a phrase. Phrases do not both have a subject and a predicate, but are useful for providing more details. Phrases are prepositional, infinitive, participial or gerund.

You might remember prepositions from grade school. Perhaps you were told a story about a rabbit and a log: The rabbit jumped over the log. The rabbit ran around the log. The rabbit ran through the log, etc.

The rabbit jumped over the log. - "over the log" is the prepositional phrase.

Infinitives, you might recall from any foreign language class. Infinitives is the root verb form. To fly, to write, to yell: these are infinitives. The bandits work together to hijack the armored car.

Participial phrases are when you use an -ing word to give more description to the subject of the sentence. Laughing like hyenas, the bros exited the party: it's a participial phrase because the bros are laughing.

Gerund phrases, because they are also -ing words, look like participial phrases. The difference is that gerund phrases can act like a noun. It can be a subject or a compliment.

Ordering the second pizza was a great idea. The gerund phrase here is also the subject of the sentence. She was sentenced five years for illegally carrying a firearm. In this sentence it acts as phrase inside a prepositional phrase.

If you need more grammar help, add a few of these resources to your toolbox:

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire - A copy of it is available at the FSU Law Library or through UBorrow
Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - also available through UBorrow

If you want to write a strong sentence, consider the sentence you are writing is like a train. You need an engine to pull it and a caboose to close it.

Keeping that in mind

Don't begin a sentence with This is, That is, It is, There are. These are vague words.
Don't end a sentence with a single preposition. Such as: What are you going on about? Where are you going to?

To fuel a train, you will need a strong verb. Like in the sentences above: Avocados rot on the counter. Make sure your verbs are active, strong and specific. You don't go fast; you run. You speed. You race.

What to avoid when writing:

Smoke and Mirrors writing: Don’t be fooled by rhetorical smoke and mirrors. Effective writing evokes specific images in the readers’ minds. The crone bit into the apple. Specific person, specific action, specific fruit. Sometimes writers will rely on big words, gauzy imagery or buzzwords to capture the reader’s attention without making a specific point. Loading up your paper with "smart" words, "academic" words and rare gems from your Thesaurus should be avoided. Using rhetorical smoke and mirrors is the same thing as taking a boring photo and then using a fuzzy Instagram filter on it to give the illusion that the photo is interesting. Listen to Erykah Badu. “What good do your words do, if they can’t understand you”
Never take the spotlight off your subject. Self-referential statements, sidebars, 1st person writing: all of these devices places the focus on you the writer instead of the awesome subject of your paper. Some of you may have developed the habit of explaining why you are writing about your subject in your introduction, such as "I chose to write about this subject because I felt like it is really important." Break this habit.
Vague-booking your papers. Using unclear or unspecific words hoping that the reader will gloss over them and "know what you mean". This usually happens when the composer is not 100 percent clear what they are talking about and hopes the reader doesn’t notice. I notice.
Rhetorical Questions - This device is often superfluous. You don't need a rhetorical question. The device of the rhetorical question is a stalling technique and only eats up your word count. The exception to this is if your paper relies on you searching and answering a specific research question. In those instances, your reader will be pleased to see you state the question very clearly to understand the purpose of the paper. Otherwise, delete all rhetorical questions.

Passive Voice

I want to devote some time to passive voice. Basically, don't do it. Now that you are experts in sentence structure, you will understand what I mean when I say: passive voice is when the action (verb) is not performed by the subject, but the compliment.

For example:

The paper was written by Felix. (passive voice)

Felix wrote the paper. (active voice)

Passive voice is often used by people who don't want to own up to their actions. "Mistakes were made." Really? Who made these mistakes. It's a cop out.

Keep an eye out for the "by" preposition and the "to be" verbs: am, are, is, was, were, etc.

Summary vs Analysis

Sometimes a summary is helpful in providing context for the item under analysis, but no not be fooled that they are the same thing..

Here is the best way to remember the difference: Summary is what happens in the composition. Analysis is what the composition is doing.

To say "Monica proposed to Chandler." is a summary. That sentences explains the event which occurred. Even to provide a play-by-play of that scene -- where Chandler walks into the room after being told that Monica fled to her mother's house to "think about some things", only to discover the apartment alight with hundreds of candles and Monica waiting for him saying "You wanted it to be a surprise." -- is summary. Analysis is understanding that Monica's proposal to Chandler subverts the conventions of television wedding proposals, reaching a younger audience of feminist viewers who are interested in couples which do not fall into traditional gender roles, and the moment where they both propose to each other shows how they are equals in the relationship.

Don't Forget: