AP English Literature Notes

Dan Parker
27 September - 1 October 2010

1 Concision
- shorter writing is usually better writing
- use strong verbs and the active voice
- do not use ”legalese”
- use strong verbs instead of weak verbs with adverbs

2 The Plain Style

- it is better to write plainly than trying to use a ”scholarly” tone
- avoid ”the official style” – what most professional documents are written in, very long-winded, com-
plex, and hard to follow
- an example of official style: “To satisfy her own need of hunger, she ate the bread.”
- now in plain style: “She devoured the bread.” Note the strong verb and concision.
- the official style often uses the passive voice to try and hide who performs the action
- sometimes an agent is omitted entirely
- politicians use this often

3 Rhetoric
rhetoric: the art of science of persuasion by means of stylistic and structural techniques

3.1 Diction
- diction shapes your writing
- be sure to write at the appropriate level of formality
- use plain diction, unless jargon is required.
- see notes from two weeks ago on diction

3.2 Parallelism
parallelism: any structure that brings together parallel elements
- be carful not to write with faulty parallelism (the SAT tests on this)
- be very clear when nesting lists
- do not repeat the same thing several times in the parallel structure, one of the main uses of
parallel structure is to avoid repetition

3.3 Repetition
- repetition, if used correctly, can make a very powerful point
- don’t necessarily fear using the same word more than once in a short time
- often, trying to avoid this makes the writing awkward
- Churchill was a master of this, as was MLK

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 3.4 Tense
- don’t change tense without reason
historical present: use present text to discuss what is happening in a book
- when ”discussing the facts surrounding the composition of a work, use the past tense”
- also use the past tense if you mention another work in passing
- always use historical present if discussing a work in detail

3.5 Alliteration
- alliteration makes the passage sound better or more pleasing to the ear
- use it sparingly

3.6 The Rule of Three

tricolon: the official rhetorical name
- use three things in a list
- it makes the argument more powerful
- don’t use humor
- use questions, but not exclamations
- the ends of sentences have the most emphasis

4 Clarity
- use: short active verbs, matching subjects and actors, concision, a sustained flow of sentences
- do not use: passive voice, being verbs, nominalizations, wordiness, or jumps in point of view and time

5 Grammar
- basically, everything from Latin these last 3 years...
- most sentences are Subject Verb Object (SVO) or Subject Verb Predicate (SVP)
independent clause: a clause that could stand as a complete sentence alone
dependent clause: a clause that cannot stand as a complete sentence
nominalizations: an action expressed as a noun
- e.g. performance (from “to perform”)
- these are bad because the can be used without actors