Style and Tone: Words (20 min)
Core/French/Classical (adapted from Rhetorical Style, Jeanne Fahnestock, chapter 1)
Here is what English sounded like about 1,000 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH-_GwoO4xI
The influences on English are extensive and are continuing—English has become a global language over the last 50 or so years and there will be/are a lot of borrowings, split dialects, etc. as a result of various world Englishes influencing the more standardized forms we hear and read in the media and in professional contexts.
For the version of English we speak today, in terms of vocabulary rather than syntax/sentence structure, the words that come from what you just heard are primarily from the “core” English words of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian influence on English.
These words are some of the connective tissue of English that we rely on so often today: a, can, the, to, is, etc.
But also other very common words are from this core: warn, think, car. And many of the closest to material reality: bread, milk, sun.
The most frequent words we use come from this core. The more people use the core vocabulary, the more likely readers will find it as simple and straightforward.
For some speakers, these are the words that are associated early memories of speaking English and are the sorts of words they are most accustomed to using.
After the Norman Conquest, French had a large influence on the development of English. French, for a long time, was exclusively the language of the state (and, thus, of writing). However, over time, borrowings occurred that influenced English speaking and writing quite a bit.
Many borrowings from Old French, today, are associated with elevation, elegance, beauty, etc. Words like: autumn, glory, stunning, capture, cherish, adorned, accented, auburn, authenticity, acquire.
Several centuries from the early 1,000s through the renaissance and further out, much scholarship was written exclusively in Latin and some Greek. Thus, many of the words associated with knowledge and with formality are borrowings from Latin and Greek.
Words like substance, corporeal, composite, finite, sentient, cerebral, fact, explain, necessitate, crisis, appropriate, external, scheme, system, obstruction all come from Latin and Greek.
It is not always true that core words are perceived as “simple and concrete” or French words are always “elevated” or that Latin/Greek are always “scholarly” (e.g., “practice” is fairly simple word from French), but this rule generally applies.
Why think about this? A common stereotype about professional writing is that you should try to sound “formal.” This is sort of true, but it is difficult to pin down exactly what this means. Further, it often conflicts with another stereotype that professional writing should be “clear, direct, concise, etc.” What is true is that depending on the situation, you might want to be more formal, or more informal, or more concrete, or more abstract…or, well, probably a combination of all of these.
Here are some examples of synonyms across core, French, and Latin/Greek:
walk/ stroll/ ambulate
hate/loathing/antipathy
fix/ correct/ emend
In chapter 4 of BWE, there’s a recommendation to write formally but then restate the same thing informally. This can frequently be a good move, especially in places you feel obligated to be high on the spectrum of formality, jargon, technical language. (go to cover letter and do this)
Another thing to try: Synonymia is deliberate use of many synonyms. If you want to work your prose up to a place of elevation or scholarly tone, you could start from the core and go to borrowings or vice versa (moving toward core is essentially what the chapter 4 recommendation is).
If time:
Take 5 minutes and go to the Oxford English Dictionary(go to library.pitt.edu, click “Databases,” and search “Oxford English Dictionary” if link doesn’t work). First 17 sentences of https://www.kickresume.com/en/help-center/ibm-junior-product-manager-cover-letter-sample/. Note the origin for each (take them through how to look up origins via OED). Let’s meet in 4-sentence clusters to note percentages of core, French, and Latin/Greek origins. Do these proportions correspond to your impressions of certain parts being more or less formal?
Register
Another way to think about how clusters of words impact style is register. This is a term from linguistics and essentially refers to word clusters or patterns in syntax (i.e., sentence order/arrangement) that frequently re-occur around a specific topic or tone: formality, discipline of study, workplace, industry, etc.
Writing in your industry means learning the appropriate register or registers (e.g., register for communication among co-workers may be a register slightly or even drastically different from register used in customer service).
When talking about the Harris Corporation job ad, we were thinking about register to a degree: the technical language, the language around militarism, the language around globalism, around security. Finding the right register for your situation can be important; it can send a message that you are in solidarity with your audience (you are one of us) or that you have expertise on a subject (to know this language is to know this content). Using appropriate register is an important rhetorical skill.
Shifting and mixing registers can also have rhetorical effect.
Rhetoric scholar Jeanne Fahnestock (2011, p. 87) notes that it could be as little as a word or it could be a phrase or sentence. For instance, a long academic passage with clusters of words like hypothesis, generality, explanation could suddenly have a word like “bullshit” in there. Such a word draws attention to itself not only by its own force, but by its contrast between a register that word normally occurs in compared to the register it is contrasting with.
Register mixing involves a more extensive integration between registers. Fahnestock (p. 88) cites the following example from a money market fund’s seminannual report:
The first six months of 2003 were a good period for both stocks and bonds. Interest rates continued to fall and stock prices rose broadly. In addition, new tax cut legislation was enacted and corporate earnings showed signs of improvement.
American Balanced Fund posted a total return of 10.0% for the six-month period ended June 30. The fund outpaced the Lipper Balanced Fund Index, which had a total return of 8.9%. Stocks, as measured by Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index, gained 11.8%. Bonds, as measured by the Lehman Brothers Aggregate Bond Index, rose 3.9%. The market indexes are unmanaged. (cited in Fahnestock; American Balanced Fund 2003, 1).
What is the difference in information provided in paragraph 1 compared to paragraph 2? What does that tell you about mixing of registers and why it might have occurred?
You might also mix registers when mixing dialects or other languages. For instance, if you speak and write in a community that would respond well to versions of African American Vernacular English, Spanish, or South Philly white working class English, you could mix in words, phrases, or entire sentences inflected with a dialect or language.
Doing so can make a point of emphasis (like the world “bullshit”), as a way to build solidarity with an audience that might also speak that language or dialect, or through other rhetorical aims that take advantage of the symbolizing effect of using a different language/dialect or just the rhetorical force from a given instance of that language/dialect as compared to the Standard English version.
E.g., “Is there anyway to complete the report by the proposed deadline, are we really gonna get that (or ‘dat’) jawn goin by then (or ‘den’)?”
There’s nothing inherently “more” or “less” valuable about one langauge or dialect as compared to another. It is also very difficult to pin down exactly what “Standard English” even is. Truthfully, any instance of what someone could call Standard English in a given instance will have some mixture of register going on.
Mixing in dialects and other languages happens more often than you think (especially in speech), but you should “read the room” before thinking strategically about how you might use it with an overt rhetorical purpose in writing or speech.
Positive and Negative Words
In Chapter 4 of BWE, the author (Arley Cruthers) makes a point that using positive language is preferable in professional communication. In terms of word choice, they focus on negation, but also how you write certain details.
In the two extended examples (in the gray blocks) in that section, on a scale of 1-5 (1=very negative, 2 negative, 3 neutral, 4 positive, 5 very positive), mark each word in both the positive or negative version. What was the overall score? Look again, what kinds of words (parts of speech, other things to consider) were the positive, neutral, and negative words?
Keep this in mind when you revise your own writing.
Style and Tone: Readability and Voice (20 min)
Consideration of Reader
Cruthers mentions that you should write for your reader. This sounds obvious, but it is good to remind yourself of this:
What information would you audience really care about?
What would they sort of care about?
What would they not care about?
How can you emphasize things or cut things based on this information?
How can you format your document to make navigation easy for your particular audience (will talk about this more on Thursday!)?
Coherence
This is another concern for readability, and one I brought up on some of your biographies. One of the best ways to think about coherence is the given/new principle in writing.
Generally speaking, the opening of a sentence (‘given’) contains information that the reader already knows and the ending of a sentence (‘new’) contains new information. The ‘given’ information is based on one of two sources:
- Something that is common knowledge or transition words that signal reference (explicit or implicit—as in, inserting common knowledge at beginning that wasn’t mentioned yet, having a sentence of only new information because the new information implies the old/common knowledge, or a transition marker that refers back)
- Something that was referred to in the previous sentence or earlier in the passage.
Here are some examples, right from chapter 4:
It is easy to let your sentences become cluttered with words that do not add value to your message. Improve cluttered sentences [GIVEN] by eliminating repetitive ideas, removing repeated words, and editing to eliminate unnecessary words [NEW].
You should be especially careful when writing about groups of people in a way that might reinforce stereotypes. For example [GIVEN; offers inference that example is exemplifying previous] implied, in his book Elements of Indigenous Style, Gregory Younging discusses how subtle bias can have a big impact when non-Indigenous people write about First Nations, Metis and Inuit people [NEW].
If you are a writer that frequently gets comments on papers that your writing is “clunky” or hard to follow, this can be one fairly easy method to improve the readability for your reading.
Being Concise
This is a good general principle in professional communication. Everyone is busy, and for most (but definitely not all!) forms of professional communication, getting to the point fastest is important.
Now, say you are writing a report, a proposal, or another document that might be a little more in depth than an email or a memo. There’s some stuff in there that just can’t be cut. What can you do from an organizational perspective to help make the document accessible for the busy reader?
Being Inclusive
This comes down to thinking about your own assumptions about the world and about your audience and to knowing who makes up your audience.
Some efforts at being inclusive are, hopefully, universal enough (e.g., probably not a good idea to openly insult someone, using offensive language toward specific groups even if your audience does not include people from those groups).
Others are not. From the chapter, the example about Christmas is a good one. If you are writing a newsletter in December, it would definitely be better to write “holidays” than “Christmas,” because if you have people who are non-Christian, they might be annoyed by that (they might not, but why risk bothering a co-worker when you don’t have to?).
Voice in General
Generally speaking, do not by shy about trying to value your idiosyncrasies in your writing or imitate the way you speak in your writing. Especially for audiences that know you, it can add to the memorability or enjoyment of the text. Further, it can make you more engaged in your writing. Can be subtle but can more more explicitly purposeful (e.g., register mixing).
Voice: Active and Passive
It is generally a good idea to use more active language in professional writing because it is often more concise and more engaging. However, this is not universally true.
The subject of a sentence (or dependent clause) is the noun or noun phrase that performs the action. The subject usually is whatever ‘doer’ is at the beginning of the sentence, but not always (e.g., ‘Out of the cupboard a spiderdangled’ or ‘From that moment, I knew I was in trouble’). It can also be an expletive construction (e.g., ‘Here is the book)
The passive voice occurs when the subject of the sentence is something that is being affected by the verb rather than affecting something else. Practically speaking, the subject functions more like an object—the verb is doing something to the noun that is the subject rather than the noun/subject doing the verb to something else. E.g., ‘The report will be reviewed by the PR department’ or ‘The report will be reviewed’ rather than ‘The PR department will review the report’.
The passive use can be helpful. Cruthers identifies the following scenarios:
*don’t know who did the action
*when you want to hide responsibility
*when the doer is not important (e.g., want to be concise)
*when you do not want to credit or blame someone or something
*when you want to maintain an objective voice
Activity: turn two of the examples of passive voice from chapter 4 into the active voice (be creative when necessary). What is lost? Can you see it?
Voice: Rhetorical Figures and Tropes
Not really time to get into it today, but using rhetorical figures of speech and tropes (e.g., anaphora, parallelism, antimetabole, metaphor, metonymy, irony, litotes, iconicity) can liven up writing.
Remember the general sense of professional writing: some writing must blend in but other writing must blend in and stand out, simultaneously (e.g., job application materials). Rhetorical figures can help make writing memorable when done subtly (helpful for blending in) and can help it stand out when done less subtly.
Activity: choose one of the rhetorical figures in chapter 4 or click on the link provided there to select one and revise a sentence in your cover letter to use a figure or a trope.
Style and Tone: Positive, Neutral, and Negative Messages (10-15 min) (adapted from BWE)
Structure of positive messages
-why you are writing
-supporting details
-actions needed (important!) or what comes next (if more informational)
Structure of positive messages for multiple audiences
-navigation/organization/anticipating potential responses
Structure of bad news
- Be clear and concise to minimize the chances of confusion or back-and-forth communication.
- Help the receiver understand and accept the news.
- Maintain trust and respect for the business or organization and for the receiver.
- Avoid legal liability or erroneous admission of guilt or culpability.
- Maintain the relationship, even if a formal association is being terminated. (Note: this only applies to situations where you want the relationship to continue. When dealing with an abusive client, for example, your goal might be to clearly sever the relationship).
- Reduce the anxiety associated with the negative news to increase comprehension.
- Achieve the designated business outcome.
Direct vs. indirect. When you have to be more hands on with your reader vs. the more direct approach where this is unnecessary.
For indirect: buffer, explain, break bad news, redirect/provide alternatives, end politely/forward-looking
Activity: change the direct version to indirect and the indirect to direct in examples for direct bad news and indirect bad news. What is gained and lost?
Break (10 min)
Rapid Fire Bio Exchange (20-30 min)
Choose one version of your biography. Make sure the context for the biography is not evident. You will quickly share with 3 other people for no more than 2 minutes per. Your reader should NOT have seen your bio yet.
Each reader will have to be prepared to explain what genre they think it is, what sort of audience it is for, what sort of purpose it might have, and (most important!) what from the bio led them to believe that (word choice, register, tone, organization, etc.). Also: the reader will state 3-5 words that they associate with the persona of that bio (i.e., who that person is based on the bio itself). The author should think about if that persona matches what they were aiming for.
Revision (10-15 min)
Another chance to meet the audience’s needs. Also, another chance to rethink what the purpose of document is and how you can change things to better meet that purpose.
Higher order (adapted from BWE):
- Have I met the purpose and requirements?
- Does my draft say what I mean?
- What would my audience think about what I’ve written?
- Have I changed my thinking through writing or researching?
- Are there parts that do not belong here?
- Are there pieces missing?
- Are there places where the reader would struggle to understand my meaning?
- Is the tone right for my reader?
- Are my sources the right kind for my purpose and reader?
- Are all the pieces in the right place?
- Will the reader understand the connections between my ideas?
- Are sources documented?
- ALSO: what needs to be reimagined or rewritten? (go to Revision Assignment Sheet)
Lower order (adapted from BWE):
- Take a break between writing and editing. Even a 15 minute break can help you look at your document anew.
- Read your work aloud.
- Work through your document slowly, moving word by word.
- Start at the end of your document and work towards the beginning.
- Focus on one issue at a time. Trying to look for spelling errors, punctuation issues, awkward phrasing, and more all at once can make it easier to miss items needing correction.
- Don’t rely exclusively on spelling- or grammar-checking software. (This poem was run through such a program and no problems were detected!)
- Review through your document several times.
Remixing
This constantly happens in workplace. Many “zombified” pieces of writing exist for years or even decades in chunks or even as whole documents. For example, a policy document might be written based off an older one or might have something from another piece inserted into another location in that document (especially true for legalistic things regarding liability).
For your own purposes, you might find effective phrases or sentences (either as is or tweaked for the new context) from your bio to work into your cover letter or maybe your micro-bio works in the beginning section of your resume.
More generally, and especially with memes, everything is a kind of remix. We are always pulling from things we have heard, said, written, or read in some old-but-altered-ish fashion.
As you get ready for July 11, go through these lists as you look over your writing for Unit 1.
What you should not do: look at each one of my comments and try to write what you think I want. YOU need to be part of the equation. That is your best shot at a dramatic improvement. You are more capable than small changes based on my feedback alone.
Resume and Cover Letter Peer Review (if time, can go over cover memo as well) (20-30 min)
-Let’s do peer review like the other day. Give partner time to reach each job ad, and make sure they know which cover letter/resume pairing is for which job ad.
Here is simplified version from the other day:
Piece is read aloud. Author can stop as needed to make changes. Listener/reader marks page with things they like (underline) and things that could be improved (undersquiggle).
Listener then says back to author what they think the piece is doing at big picture level.
Then listener praises important or exciting ideas or beautiful or well stated language.
The listener talks about what is stuck, some suggestions to improve.
Listener clarifies feedback and listener/author talk through together plan for revision.
Unit 2 and Unit 2 Project Introduction (10-15 min)
Let’s go over this briefly. Need to let me know by July 8 what your plan is.
Next Time (5 min)
Will continue with style to talk about sentence architecture (which we started to talk about a bit with coherence, being concise, etc.): varying them, sentence types, how to use syntax for emphasis
Document Design and some initial workplace genres (memos, letters, emails)
Design and Accessibility
Some studio time to work on Unit 2 project and Unit 1 final revisions
Due tonight and for next class:
Make sure everything you need uploaded for job application assignment is uploaded by 11:59pm tonight: 2 cover letters, 2 resumes, 2 job ads (as pdf or .doc), and cover memo.
In activity for further reflection, have a choice of genre ready for each one and have an outline for what you might write for one option. Bring to class for activity.
By July 8, let me know your choice of option for Unit 2 project.
If you got an email response, be prepared to share responses from industry contacts about kinds of writing they did, memorable occasion, recommendations (don’t have to bring examples).