Unit 8 · Topic 8.4

8.4 Style: the mix of a writer's choices

Style is the overall pattern you see when you look at many of a writer's choices together: the words they pick, how they build sentences and how they use punctuation and other conventions. Analyzing style means explaining how those choices work together, not one at a time, to serve the writer's purpose.

Key terms

style
diction
syntax
conventions
voice
purpose

What style includes

Individual choices are like single brushstrokes; style is the painting. Two writers can argue the same thing in very different styles: one plain and blunt, another formal and ornate, another playful. Each style creates a different relationship with the audience.

Element	Questions to ask
Diction	Formal or casual? Plain or ornate? Concrete or abstract? Which connotations repeat?
Syntax	Long or short sentences? Varied or uniform? Balanced, periodic, cumulative?
Repetition and parallelism	Are words or structures repeated for rhythm and emphasis?
Figurative language	Metaphors, allusions, imagery: how much, and from what areas of life?
Conventions	Punctuation habits, italics, questions, exclamations, direct address to the reader

Common style features

Anaphora: repeating the same words at the start of successive clauses ("in the name of..., in the name of...").
Parallelism: putting related ideas in matching grammatical forms, which makes them feel equal and memorable.
Antithesis: setting opposites side by side in parallel form ("You may rejoice, I must mourn").
Allusion: a brief reference to a text, event or person the audience knows, such as the Bible or a founding document.
Register shifts: moving between formal and plain language for effect.

From features to analysis

Listing devices isn't analyzing style. The point is how the choices combine. For example, a writer who uses long, balanced sentences, Latin-based vocabulary and calm qualifiers has a measured, judicious style that suits a skeptical, educated audience. A writer who uses short sentences, everyday words and direct "you" address has an urgent, plain style that suits a call to action.

A good style claim names the style with precise adjectives (dignified, urgent, conversational, ironic), points to two or three choices that create it, and explains why that style fits the purpose and audience.

Style can also change within a text. A writer might use a plain, conversational style to describe the problem, then switch to a formal, rhythmic style for the call to action. When that happens, describe both styles and explain why the writer changes at that point (6.7).

Style in your own writing

The sophistication row of the essay rubric can be earned by writing in a style that's consistently vivid and persuasive. That means precise verbs, varied sentence lengths and the occasional deliberate pattern, such as parallel structure in a key sentence. It doesn't mean big words for their own sake; complicated language that doesn't strengthen the argument won't earn the point.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Douglass's style at a turning point
From Frederick Douglass's July 1852 speech in Rochester, New York (public domain; text as reprinted in My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855). Douglass has just declared that his subject will be American slavery: "America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America!" Describe Douglass's style here and explain how it serves his purpose.
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Collect diction: "false," "crushed and bleeding," "outraged," "fettered," "trampled upon," "sin and shame." The words are moral and physical, never neutral.
2. Step 2: Collect syntax: the first sentence repeats "false to the" three times in a series that moves from past to present to future. The second sentence uses anaphora ("in the name of" three times) and delays its main verbs ("dare to call in question and to denounce") behind a long chain of phrases.
3. Step 3: Collect conventions: a dash before the final verdict and an exclamation point at the end.
4. Step 4: Name the style: solemn and prophetic, like a sermon of judgment.
5. Step 5: Tie it to purpose: Douglass wants his audience to feel slavery as a national crime, not an abstract policy question. The religious, legal and patriotic authorities he invokes are the very ones his listeners revere.
Answer: Model paragraph: Douglass's style here is that of a prophet pronouncing judgment, and it turns his audience's own values into witnesses against slavery. His first sentence moves through time with the repeated phrase "false to the," condemning America's past, present and future in one breath. He then stacks three "in the name of" phrases, invoking "humanity," "liberty" and "the constitution and the bible," before finally reaching his verbs, "dare to call in question and to denounce." That delay makes his accusation arrive with the force of everything his listeners hold sacred behind it. The physical diction, liberty "fettered" and scripture "trampled upon," makes abstract ideals feel violently injured, and the dash before "the great sin and shame of America!" sets his verdict apart for emphasis. Together, these choices make it nearly impossible for a patriotic, churchgoing audience to treat slavery as a mere political disagreement.

Common mistakes

Listing devices one by one ("He uses anaphora. He uses diction.") instead of explaining how they work together.
Describing style with vague words like "good" or "effective." Use precise adjectives: solemn, conversational, ironic, clinical.
Forgetting the audience. A style succeeds or fails with particular readers.

On the exam

Reading questions may ask which description best characterizes a passage's style. Check each word in the answer choice against the actual diction and syntax.
A rhetorical analysis thesis that names the writer's style and its purpose ("Douglass's prophetic, sermon-like style...") gives you a line of reasoning that can earn the sophistication point if you sustain it.

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Check yourself

4 questions on 8.4 Style: the mix of a writer's choices. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

[. . .] I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.

[. . .] Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: . . . Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants.

Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

But, as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.

Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country (1729). Swift, an Anglo-Irish clergyman, wrote during a time of severe poverty in Ireland, much of whose land was owned by English and absentee landlords. Original spelling kept; ellipses mark omitted text.

Question 1 of 4

The phrase "a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth" contributes to the style of the passage chiefly by

Question 2 of 4

The sentence beginning "I have been assured by a very knowing American" is ironic chiefly because it

(1) The city council is deciding whether to add a climbing wall to the Eastgate Community Center. (2) Opponents claim climbers are reckless daredevils who will get hurt and sue the city. (3) But community centers with supervised walls and trained staff report that most injuries are minor, such as scraped hands. (4) A wall would give teens a safe, supervised place to practice a sport that is now part of the Olympic Games. (5) The council's ridiculous delay shows that its members don't care about young people. (6) Furthermore, a wall with auto-belays, a top-rope section and a bouldering cave would facilitate optimal progression across grade tiers. (7) I urge the council to approve the wall this year.

Written for this practice set: a student's draft of a letter to the city council. Eastgate is fictional.

Question 3 of 4

Which choice best describes how the style of sentences 3 and 4 differs from the style of sentence 6?

Question 4 of 4

The writer wants the letter to have a consistent style suited to the city council. Which change would best accomplish this goal?

0 of 4 answered