Sentence Strategies
By now you realize that we know from research in rhetoric and composition that the phenomenon of error in writing is complicated. Here is a list of some of the reasons you don’t write error-free prose in this class or anywhere else:
*differences between grammar(s) and usage (e.g. grammatically correct but not the accepted usage for a discourse community)
*differences among styles and formats
*differences between dialects, as well as speaking and writing
*errors noticed in some contexts but not others, whether or not readers are looking for them
*performance errors such as typos or autocorrect
There are a number of books and web resources to help you get into a sentence-level mindset with your writing. Remember the point is not so much to memorize general rules, but rather learn to play with language and structure to apply sentence-level strategies in all the rhetorical situations you will face as a writer. Yet, these contemporary resources help you think about your writing at the sentence level.
Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty (do a web search for “Grammar Girl” for free web sites and even a podcast)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
In addition, what follow are some general strategies you may apply during each stage of your writing process.
Invention
*Handwrite or type out word-for-word (rather than copy and paste) quotes from sources to get a feel for the style and syntax of a discourse community, genre, and style of a piece of writing, as well as begin your relationship with that text’s ideas. (Be sure to surround anything you type with quotation marks so you don’t accidentally plagiarize when you go to draft your project.) You could incorporate this practice in your Writer’s Notebook (discussed in Chapter 3).
*In general, read as much carefully edited writing—in books, magazine or newspaper articles—as you can. Learn from their sentences. More specifically, read all the texts you can in a variety of genres and discourse communities about any given topic you are studying and researching for a writing project you are working on. If you know the discourse community and genre in which you need to write your project, read a number of texts like the one that you are expected to write. Use these texts as models for your own writing at the sentence level.
Drafting
*Many writers try not to get too hung up on the sentence level as they draft a writing project. If the purpose of drafting is to get your ideas on the page to have something to work with to revise (re-see) later, then it’s best to write poorly at the sentence level while drafting, being sure to revise and edit as you can before receiving feedback. Often writers who complain that it takes them “too long to write” really mean draft. The problem is that they’re spending too much time and care over each word when they need to suspend that type of attention to get ideas—not perfect words—on the page. Many writers swear by having a complete but bad first draft that they can fix later. As discussed in Chapter 2 about writing process knowledge, for many writers, writing is really revising.
*That said, you may wish to play with some word choice and sentence structure as you draft in order to explore your relationships with ideas and concepts. Remember that any writing itself—getting words on the page—is generative, meaning you can actually come up with good ideas while you’re writing, making discoveries and connections word by word and sentence by sentence.
Revising
*Revising is a good time to question your words and sentence structures both to identify for yourself just what you’re saying—your own relationship to the ideas—as well as how best to communicate them, given your rhetorical situation. Re-consider your word choice and sentence structures. For example, is this the right word? What does it mean to you—what will it mean to your readers? How does each word you choose affect your understanding of the topic, your analysis, and your position? Choose your words actively and thoughtfully considering your rhetorical situation, even as you revise for more “global,” larger areas of concern like focus, development, and organization.
*Author Robert Leleux presents an exercise in the book Now Write! edited by Sherry Ellis that mixes revising and editing. He writes, “Here’s what I suggest: retype the whole [draft]. And, I mean, start with the title. Retype every word, and while you do, listen up” (310-11). As you retype, make any changes and edits you see fit: “you listen as it becomes something strange and different” (311). If you would rather not retype your entire draft, then you can complete this exercise on one section or paragraph that you’re struggling to revise and edit. The important thing is to remain open to the global and local possibilities for your writing project as you (re)type.
Editing
*Once you have revised, you are ready to review each sentence to be sure it’s reader-ready—clear and free of error as much as possible.
*Even if you received feedback to an earlier draft, get additional feedback at this latter stage, asking specifically for comments on the sentence level. Are any sentences unclear to readers? Ask them to mark sentences they had to re-read to understand.
*In another chapter of the book Now Write! Robert Atman offers prompts for self-editing your sentences. He claims, “As encouragingly critical as your friends may be [reviewing your draft], they will most likely not subject your writing to line editing. You will need to do that yourself” (322). He adds that “strong memorable writing. . .requires a process of rigorous self-editing” (322). He provides the following prompts to help you line edit the near-final draft of a writing project you are working on:
Are your sentences slack? Tighten them. Do you use the verb “to be” over and over again in sentence after sentence? Eliminate it and stretch your vocabulary to come up with real verbs. The heart and soul of a sentence is its main verb—not the adjectives and adverbs that seem to write themselves. And your diction. Do you try to think of the best word, or do you just keyboard the first word that comes to mind? And the phrasing. Do you lean too heavily on off-the-rack idioms? (322)
*To help with line ending you may wish to read your draft aloud—even recording yourself reading and playing it back. Your ears may catch problem areas in the draft that your eyes don’t see.
*If you’re still too forgiving of yourself reading aloud, then read each sentence of your draft backward (sentence-by-sentence backward, not word by word); this will dislodge each sentence from its context in the draft.
*Be sure to read through your draft one last time looking for only your trademark errors—the errors you know that you are prone to making based on feedback you receive on your writing from your instructor, writing center tutors, etc.
Feedback – getting help identifying your trademark errors
*In commenting on your writing, your instructor or writing center tutor will not mark all of the “local” sentence-level errors in your draft. First, that would be overwhelming and not helpful in your progress and growth as a writer. Second, recall from Williams’ work that if your reviewers are reading your draft only for errors, they won’t be able to focus on the content of the project. Most likely, your instructor or writing center tutor will mark representative examples of errors, patterns of errors, errors that you may be prone to making—your trademark errors. For example, if one comma splice or spelling (or homonym) error appears in your draft, chances are there are more. Your instructor or tutor will identify the error for you, and then it is your job to consult resources to study the error and then find and correct the other incidents of that error (and any others) in your writing, according to your rhetorical situation. This is also why your instructor or tutor will not necessarily correct errors for you, as it’s your writing project and, as you know, there are a number of “correct” ways to say the same thing in writing. Overall, this approach is to help you learn to become your best self-editor, learning the trademark errors you are prone to making and how to correct them.
Remember that it’s best to work on editing issues in the context of your own writing as much as possible, and you may use the activities in the next section to help.