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©Karen L. Thompson �Department of English � University of Idaho

How to Analyze Your Prose Style to Determine Readability

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Table&of&Contents&!

Cut Lard and Stop Writing It Writing Lard: what it is and why you may have developed this habit ............ 3-5 Cut redundant words ............................................................................................ 6 Bury dead phrases or reanimate those that are only near death ................... 7-8 Cut unnecessary modifiers ................................................................................... 10

Use Strong Verbs ............................................................................................ 11

Using “to be” verbs: when and when not to ...................................................... 12 Tightening verb form to make it stronger ............................................................ 13

Use Mostly Active Voice ............................................................................... 14

Passive voice .......................................................................................... 15 Why passive voice is confusing to understand ................................... 16 How to know when a sentence is in passive voice ............................ 17-19 But sometimes you NEED to write in passive voice ............................. 20

Use Stress Emphasis ....................................................................................... 21-22

Three Ways to Improve Stress Emphasis ............................................... 23 Watch Sentence Length ........................................................................ 24 Keep Paragraphs Short and Focused .................................................. 25-26 Use Summative Modifiers ....................................................................... 27 Eliminate strings of prepositions ............................................................. 28 !

Prose Style Concept 1: Cut Lard and Stop Writing It

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• Redundant Words• Unnecessary Modifiers• Dead Words or Phrases

Use lard in pies, not in sentences.

Why you may have developed the habit of writing lard-laden prose.

• The most common cause of lard-laden prose is mistakenly trying to meet a page-length requirement by adding more words.

• Most teachers do not insist that you meet a specific number of pages or else.

• Okay, well maybe my 8th grade English teacher did, but she was a bit strange.

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Karen’s  8th Grade  English  Teacher

Who  are  you  calling  strange?

Here’s how to think about page length or word count requirements.

• They are (or should be) aimed at helping you think about the level of development you need in any given writing assignment.

• Some assignments require a sustained piece of writing. For others, something shorter is needed.

• You don’t want to write three pages when the assignment asks for ten and vice versa.

• Writing more words that do not contribute to meaning is just adding lard, so if you aren’t meeting page length or word count guidelines, consider if your writing needs development.

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already existingalternative choicesat  the  present  time presentlycurrently  at  this  timebasic fundamentalscompletely eliminatecontinue   to  remaincurrently  beingempty spacefirst beganhad  done previously

introduced a  newmix togetherneverbeforenone at  allnow at  this  timeperiod of  timeprivate industryseparate entitiesstart outstill persistswhether or  not

Cut Redundant Words

Bury Dead Phrases

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it is my intent to showas a matter of factas is well knownas stated earlierit is noteworthythe presence of it goes without saying

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at  the  present  time nowat  that  point  in  time thenhas  the  ability  to canhas  the  potential  to willin  the  event  that   ifin  the  vicinity  of nearowing   to  the  fact  that becausethe  reason  being   that becausethe  question  as  to  whether whetherthere  is  no  doubt  but  that no  doubtfor  the  purpose  of to

They’re  Alive!

Or Reanimate Them Using a Single Word

Cut Unnecessary Modifiers

• These modifiers take up space in your writing without adding much to the meaning.

• actually, really, basically, probably, very, definitely, somewhat, kind of, extremely, practically

• It’s not that they are wrong to use, but you should check to see if they are doing anything useful in your sentences.

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When possible, eliminate “there” with all forms of the the weak “to be” verb and choose a strong verb.

There is a section in the report that describes….– The report describes….

There are changes that we need to make in ….– We need to make changes….

There was a failure in the power system at….– The power system failed at….

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A strong verb (or verb phrase) conveys action that is specific.

Prose Style Concept 2:Use Strong Verbs

Using “To Be” Verbs

• To be verbs (is, was, are etc.) act as an equal sign. They are fine to use when you need them to define and equate something.

• Like this:A positron is a positively charged electron.

• But if you are trying to write something other than a definition or equality, find a strong verb because to be verbs cannot convey action.

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Try tightening the verb form to make it stronger.

• is capable of can

• is composed of composed

• is used to detect detects

• makes a decision decides

• makes a measurement of measures

• performs the development of develops

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Prose Style Concept 3:Use Mostly Active Voice• When you write in the active voice, the person who is doing

the action is the subject of the sentence.

– Like this: John washed the car. Here, John is the subject and washed is the action.

• Or, the source of the action is the subject.– Like this: The volcano erupted in May.

Here, volcano is the subject, and erupted is the action.

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Passive Voice• When you write in the passive voice, the action or the object

being acted upon is the subject of the sentence and who or what is doing the action is either missing or implied in a “by” phrase.

– Like this: The car was washed. The car was washed by John. Here, car is the subject and washed is the action.

• Or, the action is the subject.– Like this: The eruption of the volcano occurred in May.

Here, eruption is the subject and occurred is the action.

• You want mostly active voice because then the important actors are doing the action.

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Why Passive Voice is Confusing• Grammar checkers count the number of passive

verbs (is, are, were, was, etc.).

• A passive verb may indicate you need to replace it with a strong verb, but it is not the same as passivevoice.

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Why  is  this  stuff  so  confusing?

Hang  in  there,  and  let’s   see  if  I  can  make  it  clearer.

To understand why, here’s a rewrite of a famous sentence.

Once upon a time, as a walk through the woods was taking place on the part of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from behind a tree occurred, causing her fright.

• There are two subjects and two verbs in this bad rewrite. The subjects are underlined and the verbs are in italics.

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Why it’s an awful rewrite.

• Walks and jumps do not happen without someone doing these actions.

• In this awful rewrite, the actors (Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf) are not doing the action, but there is no reason for them not to be, so the sentence is needlessly passive.

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To check actors and actions ask: Who is doing what?

• Who was walking? (A: Little Red Riding Hood) and Who jumped? (A: Wolf)

Then decide if your writing is needlessly passive. If it is, revise to make the actors the subject of the sentence, so they are doing the action.

• Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the woods, when the Wolf jumped out from behind a tree and frightened her.

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But sometimes you NEED to write in passive voice.

• Scientific, engineering, and even some business prose tends to be written in the passive voice because readers care more about what was done than who did it.

• Examples:– The defendant’s DNA was compared to….. – A focus group was tested to identify….. – A test hole was bored to determine….

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Prose Style Concept 4:Stress EmphasisWhen we speak, how we emphasize or stress certain words affects the meaning.

• I only tested the Labrador for rabies yesterday.• I only tested the Labrador for rabies yesterday.• I only tested the Labrador for rabies yesterday.• I only tested the Labrador for rabies yesterday.

Notice how the sentence structure may be exactly the same, but the meaning will change because of how we stress certain words by using our voice.

Writing, however, is different.21

To understand this difference, it’s important to know how readers look for meaning.

• In the English language, readers naturally look for meaning at the end of a sentence or paragraph, known as the stress emphasis or stress position.

• This means that the start of a sentence or paragraph sets up the topic and readers look to figure out the point of what you are writing at the end.

• If writers get this structure wrong, readers have to struggle to understand the point and will often misunderstand what the writer intends.

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1. Trim the end.Sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior in the way we act in situations we are in every day.

Since social behavior means the way we act in situations, so the information after social behavior is sitting in the stress position but it’s information we don’t need.

2. Avoid writing metadiscourse, particularly, at the end of a sentence.Job opportunities in computer programming are getting scarcer, it must be remembered.

Metadiscourse draws attention to what is being said, it often sounds preachy and pompous, and it can often be written in the stress position. Eliminate it.

3. Shift new information to the right.Questions about the ethics of withdrawing intravenous feeding are more difficult.

The “more difficult” phrase is referring to something that was stated previously, so it’s old information. Keep the new information to the right, so it is in the stress position.

More difficult, are questions about the ethics of withdrawing intravenous feeding.

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Three Ways to Improve Stress Emphasis

Watch Sentence Length

• Typically, modern business prose style uses shorter sentences.

• The average sentence length is between 14 and 18 words, but avoid applying this average as a rigid rule.

• It’s a good idea to vary sentence length to avoid a choppy cadence because that may cause you to write sentences in a paragraph that are not clearly connected to one another.

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Keep Paragraphs Short and Focused

• Paragraphs in modern business writing are often much shorter than in academic prose style.

• Keeping your paragraphs short and focused on creating the right stress emphasis by starting with a topic sentence.

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Strategy for Focusing Paragraphs• Underline the sentence in a paragraph that you think best

introduces or frames the rest of the sentences in that paragraph.

• If you can’t do that, then your paragraph is probably rambling without a point. Get a point, and write a topic sentence. Or, if you have a paragraph that is rambling on without a point, then consider deleting it entirely.

• If you can underline a sentence, then make certain it is helping you to govern the meaning in that paragraph by placing it at the start of the paragraph.

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Use Summative Modifiers• A summative modifier works by summing up what’s been

said so far in a sentence, and it can help you create the right emphasis. Notice how the bolded text below does this:

– Economic changes have reduced Russian population growth to less than zero, a demographic event that will have serious implications.

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Eliminatre Strings of Preposition because they make it hard for readers to find the emphasis you intend.

• Strings of Prepositional Phrases

The condition of the patient was documented inthe patient profile written by the nurse on duty during the after-hours shift.

• Revision uses active voice and places the modifiers before the nouns:

The after-hours nurse documented the patient’s condition in the patient profile.

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