Although
Schopenhauer claimed that, "jeder
der etwas leisten will, muss in jeder Sache, in Handeln, im Schreiben, im
Bilden, die Regeln befolgen, ohne sie zu kennen," most modern students
need this style sheet; only bottomless self-pity will permit you to imagine
that these twenty-seven items have the power to impede your creative powers.
Students who become upset, even paralyzed, when they read this sheet often do
not belong to the set of students whose attitude towards language originally
provoked the production and distribution of the sheet. Failure to pay close
attention to these instructions will guarantee the immediate numerical results
described in this sheet; among other possible eventual results:
Tum
quoque, cum vacuas fuero dilapsus in auras,
Exanimis
mores oderit umbra tuos...
Quidquid
ero, Stygiis erumpere nitar ab oris,
et
tendam gelidas ultor in ora manus.
1.
Read aloud every sentence that you write. If you find the sentence difficult to
read, or if you would be embarrassed to be caught speaking such a sentence to
another human being, rewrite the sentence immediately.
2.
Your readers are as intelligent and as well-informed as you are; they have
already read the works about which you are writing, and do not need you to
describe them, or to tell them when and where the author lived, or even that he
was an author. Please do not try to convince them of the beauty, truth,
greatness, or profound significance of the texts you are discussing (-7). A
vacuous opening sentence earns -8. Instead, papers should begin with a vivid,
direct, complex, precise assertion, from which the rest of the essay flows
inexorably. The best papers often are written by people who write their opening
sentence AFTER they have finished the rest of the essay. Under no circumstances
should an opening sentence contain a passive or impersonal construction. An
opening sentence should not contain an assertion of a universal truth;
"always," "in every society," should appear neither in an
opening sentence, nor in any other sentence. For example, having read an
English translation of one or even several Greek texts does not entitle you to
make categorical statements about
"the Greeks." Having read several hundred lines of Chaucer does
not entitle you to speak with any comfort about what may or may not be
"medieval". (-10).
3. A paragraph rarely consists of one sentence. Most
paragraphs contain at least three sentences. On the other hand, paragraphs
longer than one page are not likely to be paragraphs. If you begin and end
paragraphs according to whim, you are wasting your time and mine (-8). Each
failure to provide a transition from the end of one paragraph to the beginning
of the next paragraph earns -5.
A sentence is not emotional a paragraph is. ... paragraphs
are emotional not because they express an emotion but because they register or
limit an emotion. G.S
4.
"Truth is in detail." Only assertions supported by specific,
significant detail are acceptable. Make no generalizations that cannot be
supported by referring to specific passages, phrases, words, in the texts you
are discussing. A paragraph consisting entirely of unsupported assertions earns
-10.
5.
Avoid impersonal and passive constructions (e.g., "it is," or
"there is," or "attention must be paid") whenever possible;
"it is interesting to note" too often means that you have nothing
whatever to say about what follows.
6.
To say that two passages, characters, poems "can be compared" leaves
many readers wondering why they should be compared. Such constructions are too
often symptoms of intellectual sloth, of outright cowardice, or of an inability
to conceal distaste for the assignment. A paper containing more than one such
construction receives -5 for each violation.
7.
A high proportion of sentences containing subordinate clauses [1]
(not to be confused with run-on sentences) usually characterizes a thoughtful,
interesting paper. A paper composed primarily of paratactic constructions will
receive an "F"; if you find that more than two consecutive sentences
in your paper begin with "he," or "she," you should begin
to grow anxious; if those sentences contain no subordinate clauses, you are
well on the way to earning -20. If you are interested in demonstrating the
complexity of your mind, try beginning a sentence with “although” or “since” or
“in spite of” (see #27).
8.
If the main verbs in your sentences tend to be copulative (e.g.,
"is," "are," "was," "were"), you
probably are writing mush (-20).
9.
Each outright grammatical error [case, concord, tense] earns -5. Each split
infinitive and misplaced modifier earns -8. Using a transitive verb
intransitively and vice-versa earns -9.
10.
Commas, semi-colons, and periods function not as random decoration, but to
reduce the amount of energy a reader must expend to understand what you are
trying to say. The proper use of semi-colons makes a startling impression, and
may often prevent major disasters. No semi-colon should be followed by a
sentence fragment (-7).
11.
No sentence may begin with "This"; since "this" and "these"
are often used ambiguously, use them sparingly, and with extreme caution (-5).
12.
"Quite" uses up five spaces on a line, but generally has no other
function. "A great deal" and "a lot" point to no useful
quantities (-6).
13.
No sentence should begin with "And," "Also,"
"So," or "Then" (-6). Make every effort to avoid beginning
a sentence with "Thus" followed by a comma. "Therefore"
should be used to complete a syllogism, not to clear your throat at the opening
of a final paragraph (-8). No final paragraph should begin with, "In
conclusion..." (-8). Do not fill a final paragraph with safe, vapid
generalizations; hot air has no place in any paragraph (-10).
14.
Do not use adjectives as nouns, or nouns as adjectives ["human" is an
adjective; "Shakespeare" is not]
(-5).
15.
"As" should not take the place of "because," nor should
"like" usurp the place of "as." For an explanation, see
Fowler, Modern English Usage (-5). "As previously mentioned" is a
symptom of careless organization (-5). No paragraph should begin with,
"Another example is …" (-7).
16.
Only ashes remain of students who have used “upon closer examination,” "lifestyle," “as evidenced by,”
"hopefully," "thought-provoking," "in-depth,"
"interface," "insightful," "due to," "our
hero," “critique,” "mindset," “utilizes,” “employs,” or
"input" in papers written for this course (-8). Students who have
confused "infer" and "imply" now lie with Ixion and
Sisyphus, together with students who use "affect" instead of
"effect," "center around" instead of "center on,"
"societal" instead of "social," "simplistic" instead of "simple,"
"motivational factors" instead of "motives,"
"moralistic" instead of "moral," "its" instead of "it's," (and the reverse).
Few students have used "respective" without creating distress for
themselves and others. Before using "enormity," look it up in the
dictionary. Never use "tremendous" (-7). Never use “reference” as a
verb. Whenever you find yourself using the word "flowery," replace it
with as precise a description of what you mean as you are capable of producing
(-9).
17.
If you are submitting your paper to a journal published in England, you may use
"different to," but in the continental United States use
"different from." Never use "different than." (-5).
18.
Phrases like "I think" or "I believe" or "in my
opinion" or "in this writer's opinion" are unnecessary, and
often powerfully irritating; instead of saying, "I think that Lear is a
tedious old man," merely write, "Lear is a tedious old man,"
confident in the knowledge that I will not make a mistake about who is making
the statement [unless you are plagiarizing, in which case see item 25] (-6). A
paper in which "the reader" can be replaced by "I" with no
loss of meaning receives an instant F.
19.
Underline the titles of books (-5). List the books you have used at the end of
the paper and refer to them in the body of the paper by enclosing the last name
of the author and the page number (Levine 671) in parentheses immediately after
the passage quoted or paraphrased.
20.
Use the present tense to describe the action in a text [Oedipus
"gouges," not "gouged" out his eyes] (-6).
21.
The only dictionary whose definitions you may use is the OED http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl
22.
All papers must be typed, with one-inch margins. Throw away desiccated printer
ribbons (-8). Set your dot-matrix printer at the slowest speed for your final
draft. Every mark of punctuation (comma, period, semicolon, colon, quotation
mark, parenthesis, bracket) must be followed by at least one blank space. No one who stores files only on the
hard-drive of her or his or a roommate’s computer should be registered for this
course.
23.
Proofread with care; a paper with more typographical errors than pages will
automatically receive an F. Normal human beings are unable to proofread their
own papers. Make every effort to induce a friend or passerby to proofread for
you. Abandon all hope that your inability to spell is an essential part of your
personal charm (-5 for each misspelling).
24.
In writing a comparative paper, never open with a sentence like this:
"There are many similarities and many differences between the two..."
(-9). Never use the word "comparison" when you mean
"resemblance;" do not say that A and B may be compared, when you mean
that A resembles B (-9). Organizing a
comparative paper serially earns an automatic "F".
25.
If you borrow other people's words and ideas, give them credit; otherwise you
are plagiarizing, and will receive, at the very least, an F for the paper and
an F for the course.
26.
If these remarks make little sense to you, make RAPID and EXTENSIVE use of the
HARBRACE, MCGRAW-HILL, BEDFORD, or comparable handbook.
27. In
your written assignments, avoid making brutally reductive, univocal assertions;
the best papers avoid sounding like what Berkeley called “the illiterate bulk
of mankind”:
Yet so it is, we see the illiterate bulk of mankind ... walk
the high-road of plain common sense, and are governed by the dictates of
nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them nothing that is
familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend.
Me
qui non sequitur, vult sine lege loqui ….
execrabilis ista
turba. quae non novit legem.
We went to Berkeley and they had invited
me I think it was the Phi Beta Kappa to lunch, and during the lunch there were
a lot of them there everybody asked a question not everybody but a good many,
they thought I answered them very well the only thing I remember is their
asking why I do not write as I talk and I said to them if they had invited
Keats for lunch would they expect him to answer with the Ode to the
Nightingale. G.S
He most honors my style who learns under it to
destroy the teacher.
[1] I
am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society.
There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed. S.J.