syllabus

Even if you're laboring worriedly to find plausible things to say in your papers, it still might be profitable to you to examine your style and perhaps loosen it a little. Relax and speak like (in Wordsworth's pre-feminist phrase) "a man speaking to men." Of course, to speak personally should not entail garrulity.

	Use the first person singular as you would in natural speaking. Avoid horrors such as "the present writer"!
	Offer your opinions freely, where relevant, but don't apologize for them with phrases like "in my personal opinion" or "it seems to me." It goes without saying that your writing expresses you personal opinions, doesn't it?
	Write informally but without slang. You don't want to sound like a self-important pompous ass, but neither are you shooting the bull over a six-pack.

Student writers should make some effort -- or at least be aware of the desirability of an effort -- towards achieving a more than pedestrian style. Grammatical competence is something to be assumed as present, at this level of study. But what about a spark of liveliness in the writing? Maybe the following questions will help you move in the right direction.

	Have you read your paper out loud, listening for awkward repetitions and try to hear if the sound flows and if the sentences sound like a college educated person? If you can, get a friend willing to listen and follow your meaning, and then keep watching his or her face for signs of bewilderment or of pleased comprehension.
	Have you a sentence or two in your paper that pleases you with its rhythm or construction?
	Take a look at your sentence structure: are they all subject + predicate constructions?
	Do you ever build a cumulative sentence, using participial phrases? Does sentence length vary?

Do you have an occasional Jamesian-complex sentence?

An occasional punchy fragment?

What about your punctuation?

	How often have you had occasion to use the semicolon?
	Or even better: the colon?
	Paired dashes?

And what about italics for conversational emphasis? Do you ever use them at all? (On the word processor, all it takes is pushing a button.)

A suggestion: it might be helpful to read a page of some author whose style you admire and find congenial just before you write or revise your own work.

Style