your own points and arguments will make you sound like the owner of a fine-
grained intellect. And who doesn’t want a fine-grained intellect?
2. VARY YOUR SENTENCE STRUCTURE.
Bad writing: Krumpf appeals to sentiment in his first paragraph. He appeals to
the authority of a respected journal in his third paragraph. He appeals to general
experience in his concluding paragraph.
Better writing: Krumpf starts the essay by appealing to sentiment. He then
appeals to the authority of a respected journal in his third paragraph and to
general experience in the conclusion.
Best writing: Krumpf uses a variety of argument types in his passage. He appeals
to sentiment in the beginning, to authority in the middle, and to general
experience at the end.
Reading the same kind of sentence over and over puts the brain to sleep. Mix
it up! If you’ve just written a longer sentence with lots of clauses, wake up the
reader by following it with a short, punchy sentence.
For a long time, I thought short sentences were bad. Untrue. Monotonous sentences are bad.
—Samantha
3. SPICE UP YOUR LANGUAGE.
When writing about writing, people tend to use the words writes and says a lot.
Try these better, more interesting, more precise verbs:
Argues Reiterates Juxtaposes
Asserts Underlines Conceives
Posits Bolsters Imagines
Insists Reinforces Stresses
Implies Clarifies Highlights
Infers Conveys
Proposes Describes
Here it is. The all-important tone.