Grammar & Style

Grammar & Style

English 2500

The material in Grammar and Style focused on controlling language at the level of the sentence in order to achieve a desired rhetorical effect. We learned how to shape sentences grammatically for clarity and cohesion while understanding that such revisions affected the readability of the prose. We were given many opportunities in the class to edit others writing as well as our own, each time being required to describe the changes we made and articulate why we believed they enhanced the discourse. While neither grammar nor style were new subjects to me, it was new to approach them together and understand that they really are not separate studies. 

Some of the most important areas of improvement I have made as a stylist surround sentence patterns, passive voice, objects, parts of speech, transitive and intransitive verbs, reader expectation and metadiscourse. While I still need to reference my cheat cards for most of the sentence patterns, I can (at least) confidently identify patterns 1 and 2: the first pattern is S + V + adverbial, and the second pattern is S + V + subject compliment. I've learned that knowing a sentence pattern is a valuable tool for editing because if you understand the pattern, if you know what’s going on, you can avoid overusing one pattern, or you can purposely repeatedly use the same pattern as a stylistic choice. I became more aware of how metadiscourse subtly coaxes your reader along with the progression of your writing. However, with awareness comes caution because metadiscourse can mask a lack of true cohesion in writing by faking progression with conjunctions like therefore, however and yet.

I found it quite delightful to see how passive voice obscures responsibility of the action in the sentence (for example, in The suspect is being kept in custody, we don't really know who is going the keeping). Prior to the class, I was aware of passive voice but could not actually identify it. My approach was more intuitive and it wasn't until English 2500 that I definitively learned that passive voice is to be + a verb in part participle. While the construction is not actually “bad” nor is it technically “improper” it can bring a kind of flabbiness to the writing and can deflate otherwise strong passages. For example, Editing Assignment 2 originally contained a sentence that read, “Changing the point of view changes the lens through which the story is experienced.” The sentence has a valid point but ends rather anticlimactically with the passive construction is experienced. Remembering that readers like to see the doers of the action (verb) in the subject location of the sentence, I could see how to revise the sentence into active voice while retaining its meaning. The revision reads: “Changing the point of view changes the lens that provides the experience of the story.” Understanding passive and active transformations (in passive voice the direct object becomes the subject, and the true subject is in the direct object’s position), finally drove home the function and definition of objects, which was a weak point in my grammatical skill set. Before the class I could give vague definitions of direct and indirect objects, but (regrettably) had trouble identifying them in action.

As an editor, I think the greatest area of improvement I've made is understanding how to edit without changing the voice in the writing. Since I am more sensitive to the grammatical nuts and bolts of the sentence, I am able to manipulate the adverbials, adjectivals or nominalizations, transform passive voice and repeat topic words for cohesion or emphasis without dramatically changing the meaning of the sentence and while retaining the author’s voice. Traditionally, as an editor, I am inclined to hack and slash - to make large cuts and rewrite passages from scratch in order to overcome a stylistic, rhetorical or grammatical challenge. Since I am more cognizant of how small grammatical changes can have big impacts on clarity, I am a little more conservative with the red pen and more focused on what is already written. For example, in Editing Assignment 2, the document entitled “First Submission” has only words or small phrases edited. The only portion of the text that I subjected to hack-and-slash revision was the thesis sentence – which needed a complete remodel. In Editing Assignment 2, I edited my work by carefully comparing the original sentences next to the edited versions, moving forward with those that made the text clearer and more concise and rejecting those that changed my meaning, altered the style or removed my voice.

English 2500, Grammar and Style has renewed and depended my understanding of how style really does begin with grammar, and why. Whenever I doubt the style of my or others writing, I know I can look to the nitty-gritty grammar and syntax of sentences and understand how to best revise.