Revising Style

1
Revising Style

• Writing Clear Research Papers

2
Timed Writing

• 1. Have you written at least three pages of your
  rough draft? (Yes or No)
• 2. Briefly explain one of the main principles of
  writing clearly.
• Bonus possibility Find a good textual example in
  your sources to illustrate a point or points in
  Style.

3
Style and Clarity

• Draft first, revise second
• The central objective of Style to show how a
  writer quickly and efficiently transforms a rough
  first draft into a version crafted for the
  reader. (p. x)
• Grammatical terms
• Principles not rules
• Why revise ones writing style? What is the
  worst problem of academic writing today?
• Too dense, turgid, unnecessarily complex
• Few of us are a Kant or a Hegel. (CR 264)

4
How do we know a sentence is unclear?

• We feel we have to work harder than we think we
  ought to.
• What does it mean to be unclear?
• Too abstract or turgid
• Disjointed or not fluent
• Incomprehensible, too technical

5
Go with the Flow Parallelism

• Words, phrases, or sentences presented in series
  should be in parallel form. That is, multiple
  items presented as if they are on one level
  should share the same grammatical structure.
• Zachary Seech, Writing Philosophy Papers, 4th ed.
  (Thomson Wadsworth, 2004), 52.

6
Correct These Sentences

• Wrong Wittgenstein wrote Tractatus
  Logico-Philosophicus, was the author of
  Philosophical Investigations, writing also A
  Lecture on Ethics.
• Right Wittgenstein wrote Tractatus
  Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical
  Investigations, and A Lecture on Ethics.

7

• Wrong The pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient
  Greece wondered at the complexity of the world,
  had looked for a principle of unity in all
  diversity, and claiming a principle of permanence
  in a sea of change.
• Right The pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient
  Greece wondered at the complexity of the world,
  looked for a principle of unity in all diversity,
  and claimed a principle of permanence in a sea of
  change.

8
Now, the Principles

• Subject/Characters Make the subject of your
  verbs characters involved in those actions.
• Verb/Actions Express actions and conditions in
  specific verbs, adverbs, or adjectives. (S 43)
• What do you think about the epigraphs before each
  chapter?

9
Applying the First Principle

• Consider these sentences
• Our lack of knowledge about ultimate causes
  precludes determination of free agency in human
  actions.
• Better Because we know nothing about ultimate
  causes, we cannot determine if humans act freely.

10

• The reason for Lockes frequent repetition lies
  in his distrust of the accuracy of the naming
  power of words. (CR 266)
• Better Locke frequently repeated himself because
  he did not trust words to name things accurately.

11
Quick Tips

• Make your subjects short, specific, and
  concrete. (CR 267)
• Investigate the first five or six words of every
  sentence looking for the subject and checking
  that it is a character matching the action.

12
Applying the Second Principle

• Sub-principle Avoid unnecessary nominalizations.
  (CR 268-69, S 30-36)
• Husserl provided an investigation into the
  foundations of logic.
• Better Husserl investigated the foundations of
  logic.
• Our discussion concerned an ethical dilemma.
• Better We discussed an ethical dilemma.
• There is a need for further study of this matter
  of complexity.
• Better We must study this complex matter further.

13

• A complex example CR 272, S 35
• But some nominalizations may be necessary,
  especially in philosophy where the characters are
  often abstract concepts or ideas.

14
Additional Principles

• Use the passive voice properly.
• Avoid unnecessarily long compound noun phrases.
• Put old, familiar information before new,
  unfamiliar information. (Cohesion)
• Put more complex information last in a sentence.
  (Emphasis)

15
Another Example

• "Or, in line with a suggestion made by Henri
  Gobard, would it be better to translate this as
  a "double hold," like a full nelson in wrestling,
  so as to better describe the treatment forced on
  the unconscious when it is bound at both ends,
  leaving it no choice than to respond Oedipus, in
  sickness as in health, in its crises as in their
  outcome, in its resolution as in its problem"
  (110).
• Deleuze and Guattari. Anti-Oedipus Capitalism
  and Schitzophrenia. Translated by Robert Hurley,
  Helen Lane, and Mark Seem. Minneapolis
  University of Minnesota Press, 1983.
• SolutionFollowing a suggestion by Henri Gobard,
  we can translate this idea as double hold.  It
  describes the force imposed on the unconscious
  bound by both ends The unconscious has no
  choice but to respond Oedipus for a resolution
  or cry Oedipus about its problem.

16
Timed Writing

• From the point of view of stylistic clarity,
  which abstract is best and why? Which abstract is
  worst and why?

17
Applying the Principles

• Does the abstract contain the essential parts?
  Identify them.
• Can you distinguish psychological topics from
  subjects? Does the abstract have a coherent topic
  string?
• Are there any examples of nominalizations? Are
  they useful?
• Are there any examples of metadiscourse? Is it
  useful?
• Can you rewrite any sentences to make the
  abstract clearer?

18
Of Theories of Coercion, Two Axes, and Some
Grinding

• The recent accounts of coercion can be mapped
  onto two different axes whether they focus on
  the situation of the coercee or the activities of
  the coercer, and whether or not they depend upon
  moral judgments in their analysis of coercion.
  Why, however, has no recent theory seriously
  explored a non-moralized, coercer-focused
  approach to coercion? There are important
  reasons, I argue, to think that contemporary
  theories are disadvantageous to a new theory in
  this unexplored quadrant. What is crucial in
  thinking about coercion is to focus on the
  willingness and ability of the coercers to use
  their powers against coercees.

19
Environmental Damage and the Puzzle of the
Self-Torturer

• Collective conduct that severely damages the
  environment has been traced by current
  researchers to interpersonal conflicts of
  interests. Even in the absence of interpersonal
  conflicts, conduct of the relevant sort can
  flourish. This can be seen by considering the
  puzzle of the self-torturer. To prevent us from
  destroying the earth, I argue that being
  sympathetic and well-informed may not be enough.
  

20
Chasing Chimeras Aesthetic Constructions of the
Animal

• How are we to see ourselves in relation to the
  animals gaze? To address this question, I
  examine the writings of Derrida and Kofman to
  locate how they each speak of the animals gaze.
  After briefly addressing the animals face,
  particularly as posed by Levinas, I turn to
  Derridas analyses. The themes. These themes
  are illustrated by Balthus in his painting which
  Kofman analyzes in her book. This painting.

21
Emphasis (Stress)

• What are some key points of advice?
• Shift less important information to the left.
• Shift more important information to the right.
• Extract and Isolate
• Dont put the most important ideas in the middle
  of the sentence.
• Sometimes you should break a sentence in two for
  emphasis and clarity.
• Remember these are tools not rules!

22
What are some syntactic devices to employ?

• Examples
• There are important benefits to the doctrine of
  determinism.
• What is most important is the relationship
  between subject and object.
• It is well-explained in Ethics that determinism
  has important practical benefits.

23
A Coherent Paragraph

• Paragraph Issue (short opening segment
  identifying topic)
• Discussion (longer following segment explaining
  topic)
• Psychological Topics and Grammatical Topics
• As for phenomenology, it is not clear how it will
  be developed in the 21st century.
• I cannot explain the reasons for a sound defense
  of free will.
• The reasons for a sound defense of free will, I
  cannot explain.

24
A Coherent Paragraph

• Main Principles, pp. 81-82
• Themes conceptually related words
• Thematic strings sequences of themes
• Topic strings and thematic strings are the frame
  within which you develop new ideas.

25
A Coherent Paragraph

• Diagnosis and Revision, pp. 94-95
• Whats the point?
• Point the specific sentence on the page that
  the writer would send as a telegram if asked
  Whats your point?