Stylistic
Concerns
Be
flexible
·
Your
words are not set in stone – you can change them!
·
Your
first choice of words is not necessarily the best choice.
·
Yes, it
is legal – and often desirable – to rearrange your sentence structure.
·
Vary your
verbs. Specific and varied verbs
make the material more interesting, informative, and active.
Make
the most of your reader’s time
·
Try
turning some phrases into adjectives or adverbs. This condenses your sentences and makes the relationships
between ideas clearer.
·
Don’t
separate subjects and verbs with a lot of information.
Readers tend to ignore the information in between the
subject and the verb and will become irritated because the information isn’t
in the order they expect (subject ŕ
verb ŕ remaining information).
·
Clearly
emphasize the material you want to draw the reader’s attention to.
(Less important information can be set off by commas or dashes, put
into prepositional phrases, put into parenthesis, etc.)
Be
conscious of informality
Formal
papers should avoid the following:
·
Second
person
·
Slang –
your personal dialect is often not the most graceful means of presentation
·
Hedging
(e.g. “I think….”; “I believe….”; “It seems to be….”) State
facts and beliefs outright; take responsibility for your claims.
·
Asking
too many rhetorical questions of the audience
