Writing Gracefully

Create a suitable tone Diction Syntax

DICTION What words you choose

Avoid: Jargon Clichés Dull verbs Passives Imprecise words Unnecessary adverbs and adjectives

Use figurative language where appropriate Imagery (metaphor ,simile,

personification) Eg. “Love is an ever-fixed mark/ That looks on

tempest and is never shaken” -- Shakespeare

Symbol Eg. “Do not go gentle into that good night;/

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light” – Dylan Thomas

Sound use similar sound together or contrasting

sound to create the tone you want ( alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhyme)Examples: “There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,/ And swallows circling with their shimmering sound” – Sara Teasdale

“Round the decay/ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,/ The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rhythm accented and un accented beats to

emphasize certain words or phrases

“The play’s the thing/ Wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the King” – Shakespeare, Hamlet

“But at my back, I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near:” – Andrew Marvell

SYNTAX (how you arrange your words)

Sentence variety: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex

SIMPLE: one main (independent) clause

She smiles at wolves.

COMPOUND: two main clauses joined by a comma and coordinate conjunction.

She smiles at wolves, but she roars at mice.

COMPLEX: two clauses--one subordinate and one main (independent)

She smiles at wolves [because she admires their courage].

COMPOUND-COMPLEX: At least three clauses: two main and one subordinate

[Although she roars at mice], she smiles at wolves, and she admires their tenacity.

SYNTAX: sentence structure

Order your words to emphasize certain words

Eg. parallelism

PARALLELISM

A series of clauses with similar syntax (word arrangement) or meaning

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

Charles Dickens

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative." Martin Luther King Jr.

TYPES OF PARALLELISM CHIASMUS: balanced clauses with

reversed words Examples: “Each success brings with it

the potential of failure, and each failure brings with it the potential of success” -- John F. Kennedy

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” – John F. Kennedy

ANTITHESIS: balanced clauses that contrast in meaning

“For every thing there is a season… a time to be born, a time to die… a time to weep a time to laugh; a time to mourn, a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes)

“To err is human: to forgive [is] divine”.

CLIMACTIC PARALLELISM: words form a rising order of importance

Often the last important word in one clause is the first important word in the next clause

“The boss fired my dad; my dad kicked the dog; the dog chased a cat; the cat killed the mouse, and we buried the mouse in the boss’ desk!”

More Examples of Parallelism

I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift

nor the battle to the strong neither yet bread to the wise nor yet riches to men of understanding nor yet favour to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them

all. (Ecclesiastes)

Good morning, Miss Authoritarian. Goodbye, bonfires on the beach. Hello there, line-ups, marching in columns of two, standing stiffly at attention, sitting with your hands folded on your desk, keeping your trap shut. Goodbye picnics on the flat sun-baked stone of deserted islands, good-bye blackberry bushes in bee-loud glades. Hello scribbler and ruler. Goodbye cry of the loon, depredations of the raccoon, sunburn at noon, and hide-and-seek by the light of the moon. Good morning sir.

--Harry Bruce, “Labour Day is the Dreaded Bell in the Schoolyard of the Mind”