Getting an A on an English Paper
Jack Lynch,
Rutgers University – Newark
Style
Part of good writing comes from developing a mature and confident critical voice, and that comes only with time.It's not surprising that freshmen, even those who did well in high school English, often need time: time to learn what a college-level English paper should do, time to eliminate all the little mechanical errors, and especially time to develop a clear and sophisticated tone.
Once again, there are no shortcuts. You can, however, get better more quickly if you supplement a lot of writing with a lot of reading. Read the best stylists whenever you can. Alexander Pope gave similar advice to critics almost three centuries ago:
You then whose Judgment the right Course wou'd steer,In other words, before you can write good criticism, you have to absorb the styles of the best writers. Pope recommends Homer and Virgil: they're fine, but I suspect you have small Latin and less Greek. I'll recommend some personal favorites who had the decency to write in English, and who can, I think, improve a writer's prose style.
Know well each ANCIENT's proper Character,
His Fable, Subject, Scope in ev'ry Page,
Religion, Country, Genius of his Age:
Without all these at once before your Eyes,
Cavil you may, but never Criticize.
Be Homer's Works your Study, and Delight,
Read them by Day, and meditate by Night,
Thence form your Judgment, thence your Maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upward to their Spring.
- George Orwell. Almost everything he wrote can serve as a model of clarity, but his famous essay, “Politics and the English Language,” is the best thing ever written on prose style.
- Paul Fussell. His Great War and Modern Memory is one of the best books of scholarship ever written — and oh, how it's written!
- Vladimir Nabokov. Both his novels and his autobiography, Speak, Memory, show what you can produce with a complete command of the language and a playful intellect.
- Calvin Trillin. A smartass humorist — not exactly a model of academic prose, but witty as all get-out, and with a gift for choosing exactly the right word.
My Guide to Grammar and Style includes a lot of notes on developing an effective style. Read the whole thing, but especially Audience, Bluntness, Concrete Language, Diction, Economy, Formal Writing, Long Words, Mixed Metaphor, Obfuscation, Passive Voice, Revision, Taste, and Vocabulary.
Getting an A on an English Paper
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