Vary
your sentence structure -
Nothing seems more unsophisticated than an uninterrupted succession of
subject-verb constructions. Take a series of sentences like the following as
an example: "Moby Dick can symbolize both a manifestation of God or of
the ultimate evil.”. Here are just a few of the variations you can make:
-
Melville
renders Moby Dick as simultaneously a manifestation of God and as a symbol
of the ultimate evil.
-
That
Moby Dick is subject to a dichotomy of interpretations is evident in his
depiction as both a manifestation of God and of the ultimate evil.
-
We
may intimate that Moby Dick is a juxtaposition of both the divine and the
diabolical.
Combine
short sentences - Try reading your paper out loud. If it seems
choppy it can likely be remedied by your grouping short sentences into longer,
more complex ones. For example:
"Gatsby’s
obsession with Daisy has deeper implications. He becomes obsessed with
escaping his own past."
This
would be much stronger if combined:
"Gatsby's
obsession with Daisy eventually translates into a yearning to escape his own
past."
Don’t
use passive voice -
Plain and simple. It makes your writing weak.
Bad:
"This fact was proven by Napoleons subsequent actions."
Good:
"Napoleon proved this fact through his subsequent actions."
The object of the sentence should never be turned into the subject.
Maintain
consistency in tense - Don't drift from the present to
the past to the conditional (from "he is" to "he was"
to "he would have").
Some
things to avoid wherever possible:
-
Starting
a sentence with "there are" or "there were".
-
Using
the phrase "this shows" (as a substitute say
"evident in this fact is" or "This interpretation belies
the idea that").
-
Using
the word "quotation" when incorporating a direct quote.
This makes for an awkward break from your natural thoughts, and creates an
aura of self-consciousness in your writing.
-
Exclamation
points.
-
The
first person or second person tense. Sometimes using the first person
plural (as in the previous example of "we may intimate")
is generally acceptable, in that it conveys a universality that the "I"
or "you" voices preclude.
-
Confusing
commas and semi-colons. A semi-colon can be used to connect two short,
related sentences into a longer one: ”Trench warfare became standard
during World War One; it was used in all the major confrontations.".
A comma cannot be used in this way.
-
Confusing
"who" and "whom"; the former is a
subject, the latter an object.
-
Broad,
non-specific words like "good," "bad,"
"nice," "important," "vivid,"
and "thing". If those are the only words you can use to
express what you're saying, it's likely not subtle enough to make for a
very good argument.
