Style and Grammar for Writing

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Style and Grammar for Writing

• Learnin us some good English so we can write
  better.

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5 Simple Sentences

• 1) The marker bled. (S V)
• 2) The executive drove a Porsche. (S V D.O.)
• 3) The boyfriend gave her a bouquet of lilies. (S
  V I.0. D.O.)
• 4) Kara feels tired. (S V S.C)
• 5) I saw the Prime Minister sleeping. (S V
  D.O. O.C.)

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Review

• Last time, we learned grammatically what makes up
  simple sentences.

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• But stylistically, we always want to write only
  simple sentences.

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• So let's learn how to stylize simple sentences so
  we don't sound like robots. 

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• Generally, writers stylize with something called
  Rhetorical Devices.

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Write this Down

• Rhetorical Device a technique a writer uses to
  convey his viewpoint and evoke a particular
  reader response

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Rhetorical Devices that Interrupt

• One of the simplest ways to get a readers
  attentionand thus evoke a responseis to
  interrupt an otherwise simple sentence. Like I
  just did here.

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Sentential Adverb

• A Sentential Adverb single word or short
  phrase, usually interrupting normal syntax, used
  to lend emphasis to the words immediately
  proximate to the adverb.

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Sentential Adverb

• Compare
• But the lake was not drained before April.
• But the lake was not, in fact, drained before
  April.

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Appositive

• Appositive a noun or noun substitute placed next
  to (in apposition to) another noun to be
  described or defined by the appositive. Don't
  think that appositives are for subjects only and
  that they always follow the subject. The
  appositive can be placed before or after any noun.

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Appositive

• Example
• A notorious annual feast, the picnic was well
  attended. Here, the appositive (notorious annual
  feast) is in front of the subject (the picnic).

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Anacoluthon

• Anacoluthon finishing a sentence with a
  different grammatical structure from that with
  which it began. Used in less formal, more
  conversational writing.

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Anacoluthon

• Example
• Be careful with this device because improperly
  used they can--well, I have cautioned you enough.

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Parenthesis

• Parenthesis, consists of a word, phrase, or whole
  sentence inserted as an aside in the middle of
  another sentence. Can be either set off with
  dashes (stronger, more formal) or parentheses
  (more casual)

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Parenthesis
-.

• Example
• Every time I try to think of a good rhetorical
  example, I rack my brains but--you
  guessed--nothing happens.