Grammar and Style Notebooks

"Writing well is the best revenge." -- Jo Miller

"It's supposed to be about the grammar." -- Bart Simpson

As I said on the first day of class, writing correctly and writing well are two different matters: the former has to do with mechanical issues -- grammar, syntax, usage, spelling, and punctuation -- while the latter encompasses such things as thesis, voice, style, rhythm, organization, and argument.

The two are not entirely separable, however. Without a firm grasp of the basic rules of the language, you will have little control over your own writing; instead, it will control you, leaving you feeling frustrated and inarticulate. Mastery of written English--its conventions, its various sentence styles and rhetorical devices, its vocabulary--will give you unbelievable power in today's world. And finally, there is the stark fact: you must write correctly if you want to be taken seriously by any educated reader.

Unfortunately, certain shifts in pedagogical fashion during the 1960s and '70s meant that most of us were never formally trained in grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Sentence diagramming was deemed old-fashioned, and correcting pupils' mistakes was--for some unfathomable reason--pronounced oppressive. We were cheated. Left to pick up what we could by imitation and intuition, most of us learned the parts of speech only when we took a foreign language course. Writing, for our generation, became a much harder struggle than it should have been.

Those who let us slide by without ever bothering to teach us what they knew did us a huge disservice, but as George Eliot said, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." You've already impressed me with your intelligence, and since you were brave enough to sign up for a History course, I know you're not afraid of work. You have the ability to become excellent writers. Because I happen to be several years further along in this journey than you, I can help you acquire the tools to express your thoughts in a language worthy of them.

Here, then, is the exercise:

Below is a list of terms. Over the course of the semester, I want you to provide an example for each item on the list. Use complete sentences. Ideally, these should be sentences drawn from your own papers; if you cannot find an example of something in your own writing, however, you may supply the missing item from the course reading or from a peer's paper. I may add new terms to the list, in which case I will notify you.

EXAMPLES

Analogy: "Graduate students are like the unconscious buzzards hanging upside-down from the branch." (Essay #1, p. 1)
Periodic Sentence: "In telling the story of how a Jew of Winchester was accused of doing away with a Christian boy at the time of Passover in 1190, Richard of Devizes adds the element of international conspiracy to the stereotype." (Moore, p. 37)
Unusual Vocabulary: "The monk's claims for the relics' thaumaturgic power were dubious, if not downright mendacious." (Mai Peer, in her Essay #3, p. 2)

You may provide more than one example if you wish. Note, too, that a single sentence may do double duty, serving as an example of more than one concept.

If most of these terms are unfamiliar, don't panic: with one or two exceptions (which I'll explain in class), they are all covered in the New Oxford Guide to Writing or The Well-Tempered Sentence. In addition, I will try to draw your attention to possible examples when I comment on your papers.

Why am I doing this to you? Three reasons:

THE LIST:

*Brackets indicate negative things that I want you to be able to recognize and avoid in your own writing. Just make these examples up, or take them from somewhere other than your own papers (I suggest the Cornell Daily Sun if you're short on time).

Good luck!


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