A man walks into a bank with a gun in his hand. “Ok, everybody,” he shouts, “lie on the floor! This is a hold-up!” Some people obey immediately, but a few don’t. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of bullets. “Get on the floor,” he commands. “I have a handful of bullets!” When that doesn’t provoke the desired response, the man begins throwing the bullets one at a time. The security guards quickly realize that the man has no bullets in the gun. They dodge the bullets the man throws at them, and quickly overpower him.
Why did this man fail to rob the bank? He had the necessary tools, namely the bullets and the gun. His problem, however, was that he used them separately. Each tool had some effect, but they did not help him accomplish his purpose when used alone. In mostcases, tools need to be combined to make the greatest impact on your audience, whether people in a bank or people who read your documents.
Strategies for Impact
Writers have at their disposal many strategies for making an impact. In most cases, they can be used independently to create some level of emphasis, or impact. For example,
Parallelism: Creating a series of parallel items provides increasing emphasis on those items while showing how they are related to a main point.
Framing: Framing ideas by stating similar ideas at the beginning and end of an argument reinforces those ideas and keeps the reader focused.
Sentence Fragment: A sentence fragment starting with a conjunction tells the reader to pay close attention to what comes next.
Style Shift: Dropping in a rare colloquialism garners reader attention to a particular point.
Terminal Placement: Stating the most important information or concept at the end of a sentence or paragraph demonstrates its importance and helps the reader focus on it.
Short Phrase or Sentence: Short sentences and phrases have the potential to create strong emphasis. They catch the eyes visually, and the punctuation on either side creates pauses so that the phrase or sentence stands out.
Many such strategies exist. In fact, the writing guide Bang! Writing With Impact contains over 200 such strategies.
However, these strategies increase the overall impact of your writing when they are combined logically and artistically. Let’s look at a great example of how the strategies described above can be combined to create an overall emphasis on a particular idea.
Sample of Strategies Combined
The text in this sample is taken from An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World by Harry Elmer Barnes (Author: 1937, 1941; Dover Publications Inc.: 1965). The passage discusses the idea that while human nature has not changed since the earliest days of our history, humankind has made great advances in culture, thus negating the idea that human nature is a barrier to societal advancement. By the time you finish reading this selection, you will have a good idea of where the author stands on this issue, and, likely, you will agree with him.
These considerations should serve to make clear that what we regard as human civilization has developed without any change in human nature. Our institutions, literature, art, and religion have grown from the most rudimentary beginnings to their present forms without involving the slightest changes in the physical equipment which we designate as human nature. We have passed from cave dwellings to the Empire State building and Rockefeller Center, from small clans and tribes to great national states and colonial empires, from the possession of a few skins and bone implements to billionaires, and from illiteracy to the wisdom of a John Dewey or the erudition of a Joseph McCabe. And all of these advances have been accomplished with the same old human nature, persisting unchanged.
The writer used the strategies above to emphasize his points, lead to a final conclusion, and make an impact on his readers.
Parallelism: This passage contains two major examples of parallelism. The second sentence contains a parallel series of 4 individual words (“institutions, literature . . .”). The third sentence contains a series of 4 parallel phrases. In most cases, four items in a series is the maximum for creating emphasis. Using more than four actually reduces impact.
Framing: The first sentence provides the context for upcoming text: “human civilization has developed without any change in human nature.” Then the author provides some discussion of this, some examples, etc. Finally, in the last four words of the paragraph, he reinforces his idea: “human nature, persisting unchanged.” Thus, we start and finish with the central concept, which frames the entire passage.
Sentence Fragment: Starting a sentence with “and,” “but,” and “yet,” (coordinating conjunctions) will always make a sentence fragment. However, this strategy tells the reader that the next information is inherently linked to and provides the conclusion from the previous statement. This tells the reader, “Pay attention. I’m about to write something important.” The author used this strategy by starting the final sentence, “And all of these advances . . . .” At this point, he begins to build up to the final impact statement.
Style Shift: This passage has a fairly academic tone. While the author obviously is passionate about this issue (we know this from the other strategies), he maintains a high, fairly impersonal tone. Then, he uses the term “same old,” which is a colloquialism. This draws the reader’s attention to what comes next. If the reader’s attention has started to wander during the previous discussion, this temporary shift in style will draw the reader back in so that the author can make his central point, which follows immediately.
Terminal Placement: The most important information in a sentence should be at the end of the sentence. Similarly, the most important information in a paragraph should be at the end of the paragraph. The reason for this is simple. The words at the end of the paragraph have the potential to create the greatest impact, so placing the main idea there means placing the greatest emphasis on the main point. The last four words of this paragraph summarize the main point.
Short Phrase or Sentence: Look at the final phrase of the entire passage: “persisting unchanged.” That is the point of the entire passage: human nature has persisted unchanged and yet all these accomplishments have occurred.
Harry Barnes packed many strategies into four sentences. The effect is cumulative, building to an impressive, emphatic paragraph. The final sentence, alone, combines four strategies, which together build to the final impact statement: start with a conjunction to catch the reader’s attention, shift the style to increase the impact, and conclude with the most important information in a very short phrase. Barnes would have been a very successful bank robber.
Oh man, just found this blog after trolling through some of the other posts. It's totally my thing! The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks-making fun of bad punctuation since 2005. Check it out here.
The blog wasn't noticed much at first. But about six months ago, things started picking up. "You know how it happens _ one person links to you, then others do. Also, everyone has camera phones now," Keeley said in a phone interview. Earlier this week, she was linked on Yahoo!, which quadrupled her traffic for a couple days to about 2,000 hits _ though her record is still about 3,000 in a day.
What draws people? The humor, but also partly, Keeley admits, a sense of superiority, at least grammatically speaking _ something she tries to avoid herself. "I don't consider myself a prescriptivist or a pedant," she says (really). "So I'm open to critiques of my own language. I make plenty of mistakes myself."
Rampant quote abuse is a pet peeve of many writing teachers, of course. One of them, Pat Hoy, feels the larger problem is not the punctuation missteps _ that's bad enough _ but the reliance on quotes themselves, by writers who should know better.
When people confuse the following, it makes me nauseated. If you're nauseated, it means you're feeling sick. If you're nauseous, it means you're making others sick (causing nausea in others).
I hear people say "I'm feeling nauseous," and I think to myself "please stay away from me, I don't want to become nauseated."
Check out the list of my pet peeves:
adverse / averse
affect / effect
aggravate
alleged
all right
altogether
among / between
assure / ensure / insure
auger / augur
average / median
blatant / flagrant
capital / capitol
complement / compliment
comprise
consul / council / counsel
convince / persuade
discreet / discrete
disinterested / uninterested
enervate
enormity / enormousness
factoid
fewer/ less
flammable / inflammable
flaunt / flout
forte
gender / sex
hopefully
impact
impeach
imply / infer
incredible / incredulous
irony
irregardless
its / it's
kudos
lay / lie
leave / let
literally
mass / weight
mean
mischievous
nuclear
parameter
penultimate
peruse
phenomenon
plus
precipitate / precipitous
prescribe / proscribe
presently
principal / principle
renown
reticent
sacrilegious
seasonable / seasonal
sensual / sensuous
set / sit
that / which
unexceptionable / unexceptional
unique
utilize / use
wherefore
wreak / wreck
zoology
Reminds me of the Al Yankovic song:
Except she was always using the word "infer" When she obviously meant "imply" And I know that somw guys can put up with that kinda thing But frankly, I can't imagine why
And I told her, I said "Hey" Are we playin' horseshoes, honey? No I don't think we are You're close (close) but no cigar
Anyway, anybody here have any pet peeves regarding commonly confused words?
Here's a fantastic selection of tools for writers of any style. This is a list of tips aimed at improving your writing skills that I cribbed from another site here. Before you start firing off submissions to publishers or you embark on that eBook writing project, do yourself a favor and review.
All of these tools come various sections of Poynter Online which is a rich resource for journalists. If for some reason you want to see last year's post (for the comments perhaps), you can do so here.
When you're talking about the 1990s, or the 1830s, or the 1250s, you're not talking about something that belongs to the year 1990, or 1830, or 1250. So unless your sentence reads, "Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time' was 1250's #1 single," don't add an apostrophe between "0" and "s." It isn't required at all!
I know a better way to teach kids grammar: teach them foreign languages. We need to start enforcing that in our schools. They'll come away with a better understanding of English and grammar than an "old-school" grammar class could ever provide. Sprechen Sie Deutsch! Parlez Français! Hable Español! Parli Italiano! Gavarite Russkiy!
Interestingly, I once read a National Geographic article (I think it was in the early 1990's) in which a researcher described a single conversation (in American-Sign-Language) between 3 species: a human, a gorilla, and a chimpanzee. Here's an excerpt from the ABC article:
The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don't say it out loud ... these apes understand English.
You can talk to the apes, and they know what you are saying.
The residents of the Great ApeTrust are part of groundbreaking language research where the apes are being taught to communicate with humans by pressing 350 lexigrams —symbols that appear on a screen and represent thoughts and objects.
The superstar is 26-year-old Kanzi, whom Bill Fields has been working with for years. To communicate, Fields speaks to Kanzi, who then points to the lexigrams to respond and demonstrate a level of understanding.
"Qualitatively, there is no difference between Kanzi's language and my language," Fields said. "It's a matter of degree."
The key to ensuring they grasp the language, the researchers said, is to start teaching them when they are young, just like you would with human babies.
In that National Geographic article, I remember the researcher also reportedly asked the chimpanzees which type of music they preferred, and they responded "Jazz".
Some of the chipanzees described in the article even made up new compound words, such as combining the word "Candy" and "Drink" to describe grape juice as "Candy-Drink".
My only stand is on behalf of better writing. I take no sides in the debate over capital punishment, which gives rise to today's point.
Too often, articles on Google News say someone is to be executed by lethal injection or is sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. In each case, lethal is redundant. An injection that kills is lethal to begin with.
I am passively considering a career change. I'm passively pursuing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'm passively engaging others in debate about better writing.
What is it that possesses bureaucrats to say they are actively considering, actively pursuing, actively engaging? For example, the paper told me this week my governor is actively considering a tax on 401k plans.
Is this like a submarine movie in which the captain searches with active and passive sonar? Can the governor passively consider a tax hike and then—ping!—switch to active consideration?
Of course not. It's bureaucratic jargon, garbage that's invading our language. You consider or don't consider, engage or don't engage, pursue or don't pursue. It's redundant and silly to say actively before any of these. To illustrate, try saying passively, the antonym of actively, instead.
Don't blame the bureaucrats. They can't help it. But there's no excuse for this junk appearing in articles, most of them—surprise, surprise—about government.
"Worst of all is the kind of jargon employed as an obfuscating technique in bureaucratic or political contexts," Fowler's Modern English Usage says in its lengthy entry on jargon. "Genuine communication in such areas of life has never been more important in our inflammatory and dangerous times."
I'm actively considering sending the author a thank you letter.
It's called the wayward apostrophe, the superfluous apostrophe or the errant apostrophe. I call it the #@%*&$@ apostrophe. It's the erroneous use of an apostrophe in common plural words and in other contexts.
You've seen it: a carved sign declaring The Smith's live in the home; a scrawled banana's for sale; a menu listing fresh prawn's. Some usage guides call this a greengrocer's apostrophe, as it shows up so often in the produce section (orange's, grape's, apple's).
Fowler's Modern English Usage says it once was proper to use an apostrophe to create a plural when a noun ended in a vowel. Since the mid-1800s, it says, grammarians have condemned this. "But it continues to appear, to the amusement of educated people, in signs and notices," it says.
"Superfluous apostrophes are a symptom of unedited prose and of the inexperienced writer," The Cambridge Guide to English Usage says. "As applicationsof the apostrophe begin to shrink, expert writers and editors are also less certain about its use."
Garner's Modern American Usage notes the wayward apostrophe often finds its way into the word says. Google News turns up plenty of articles with say's.
"The only possible cure is increased literacy," Garner's says.
Why did this man fail to rob the bank? He had the necessary tools, namely the bullets and the gun. His problem, however, was that he used them separately. Each tool had some effect, but they did not help him accomplish his purpose when used alone. In mostcases, tools need to be combined to make the greatest impact on your audience, whether people in a bank or people who read your documents. 
