Controlling Style in Your Own Writing
IntroducedControl is what a reader is grading
- Your style is a mix, and the reader is judging whether you chose it.
- A consistent mix reads as control; a mix that wanders reads as inattention.
- Neither has anything to do with how advanced your vocabulary is.
A stray fancy word can look like a bow tie that wandered into a basketball game.
Choosing your mix
- Word choice: precise over impressive, and neutral unless you intend the perspective.
- Syntax: your point in the independent clause, concessions subordinated.
- Conventions: kept, so the reader's attention stays on the argument.
Select all the components you should choose deliberately.
Those three are what style is made of.
Irony is a bad bet in a timed essay
- Irony depends on the reader catching the gap, and your reader is a stranger.
- A missed irony reads as an error, and the reader cannot ask you what you meant.
- What the sophistication point actually rewards is control, not risk.
Does this show control?
Sort each choice by what a reader concludes from it.
Irony is a poor choice in a timed exam essay because...
A missed irony reads as an error, and you cannot explain yourself afterwards.
The sophistication point rewards ____, not risk.
Qualification, precision and structure all demonstrate it safely.
Irony is a bad bet on an exam. It depends on a stranger catching a gap you cannot explain to them, and a missed irony reads as a mistake. The sophistication point rewards control — and control is demonstrated by qualification, precision and structure, all of which are safe.
Varying sentence length at random shows range and earns marks.
Variation without a reason reads as unevenness — the opposite of control.
Deliberate variation
- Vary sentence length where the argument changes pace, not at random.
- A short sentence after three long ones lands hard — but only if the long ones were doing work.
- Variation without a reason reads as unevenness, which is the opposite of control.
Match each pass to what it checks.
Three passes, one for each component of style.
A style pass
- Word choice: circle every word you would not use in speech. Is each exactly right?
- Syntax: check that your point sits in the independent clause of every two-part sentence.
- Conventions: check every colon, semicolon and dash against what it asserts.
Two sentences carry the same point. The ironic one — "an admirable achievement, if you do not ask what it achieved" — needs the reader to catch the turn. The plain one — "the achievement is real and irrelevant to the stated aim" — needs nothing, and cannot be misread.
Choose your mix deliberately: precise word choice, your point in the independent clause, conventions kept. Irony is a bad bet with a stranger reading. Vary sentence length where the argument changes pace, and run a pass over word choice, syntax and punctuation.