Vary your sentence structure -
Nothing seems more unsophisticated than an uninterrupted succession of
subject-verb constructions. Take a series of sentences like the following as
an example: "Moby Dick can symbolize both a manifestation of God or
of the ultimate evil.”. Here are just a few of the variations you can
make:
-
Melville renders Moby Dick as simultaneously a manifestation
of God and as a symbol of the ultimate evil.
-
That Moby Dick is subject to a dichotomy of interpretations
is evident in his depiction as both a manifestation of God and of the
ultimate evil.
-
We may intimate that Moby Dick is a juxtaposition of both the
divine and the diabolical.
Combine short sentences - Try reading your
paper out loud. If it seems choppy it can likely be remedied by your
grouping short sentences into longer, more complex ones. For example:
"Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy has deeper
implications. He becomes obsessed with escaping his own past."
This
would be much stronger if combined:
"Gatsby's obsession with Daisy eventually translates
into a yearning to escape his own past."
Don’t use passive voice - Plain and simple. It makes
your writing weak.
Bad: "This fact was proven by Napoleon's subsequent
actions."
Good: "Napoleon proved this fact through his
subsequent actions." The object of the sentence should never be
turned into the subject.
Maintain consistency in tense - Don't
drift from the present to the past to the conditional (from "he
is" to "he was" to "he would have").
Some things to avoid wherever possible:
-
Starting a sentence with "there are" or
"there were".
-
Using the phrase "this shows" (as a
substitute say "evident in this fact is" or "This
interpretation belies the idea that").
-
Using the word "quotation" when
incorporating a direct quote. This makes for an awkward break from your
natural thoughts, and creates an aura of self-consciousness in your
writing.
-
Exclamation points.
-
The first person or second person tense. Sometimes using the
first person plural (as in the previous example of "we may
intimate") is generally acceptable, in that it conveys a
universality that the "I" or "you"
voices preclude.
-
Confusing commas and semi-colons. A semi-colon can be used to
connect two short, related sentences into a longer one: ”Trench
warfare became standard during World War One; it was used in all the
major confrontations.". A comma cannot be used in this way.
-
Confusing "who" and "whom";
the former is a subject, the latter an object.
-
Broad, non-specific words like "good,"
"bad," "nice," "important,"
"vivid," and "thing". If those are the
only words you can use to express what you're saying, it's likely not
subtle enough to make for a very good argument.
