Style is a choice you make as a writer in response to the rhetorical situation. You learned several strategies for using style in ways that are appropriate for your purpose, readers, and genre. Here, you will learn strategies for writing with clarity and conciseness. You will also learn strategies for recognizing when certain kinds of language are and are not appropriate.

1. Conciseness

Concise writing shows that you are considerate of your readers. You do not need to eliminate details and other content to achieve conciseness; rather, you cut empty words, repetition, and unnecessary details.

Follow these guidelines to achieve conciseness in your writing:

1. Avoid redundancy. Redundant words and expressions needlessly repeat what has already been said. Delete them when they appear in your writing.

2. Avoid wordy expressions. Phrases such as In the final analysis and In the present day and age add no important information to sentences and should be removed and/or replaced.

3. Avoid unnecessary intensifiers. Intensifiers such as really, very, clearly, quite, and of course usually fail to add meaning to the words they modify. Delete them when doing so does not change the meaning of the sentence, or when you could replace the words with a single word (for instance, replacing very good with excellent).

4. Avoid excess use of prepositional phrases. The use of too many prepositional phrases within a sentence makes for wordy writing. Always use constructions that require the fewest words.

5. Avoid negating constructions. Negating constructions using words such as no and not often add unneeded words to sentences. Use shorter alternatives when they are available.

6. Use the passive voice only when necessary. When there is no good reason to use the passive voice, choose the active voice.

Here are more examples of wordy sentences that violate these guidelines, with unnecessary words in italics:

• If the two groups cooperate together, there will be positive benefits for both. [Uses redundancy]
• There are some people who think the metric system is un-American. [Uses wordy expression]
• The climb up the mountain was very hard on my legs and really taxed my lungs and heart. [Uses unnecessary modifiers]
• On the day of his birth, we walked to the park down the block from the house of his mother. [Uses too many prepositional phrases]
• She did not like hospitals. [Uses negating construction when a shorter alternative is available]
• The door was closed by that man over there. [Uses passive voice when active voice is preferable]

Corrections to the wordy sentences above result in concise sentences:

• If the two groups cooperate, both will benefit. [This correction also replaces the wordy construction there will be . . . for both with a shorter, more forceful alternative.]
• Some people think the metric system is un-American.
• The climb up the mountain was hard on my legs and taxed my lungs and heart.
• On his birthday, we walked to the park near his mother’s house.
• She hated hospitals.
• That man over there closed the door.

2. Appropriate Language

Effective writers communicate using appropriate language.

Suitability

Some situations require formal language. Formal language communicates clearly and directly with a minimum of stylistic flourish. Its tone is serious, objective, and often detached. Formal language avoids slang, pretentious words, and unnecessary technical jargon. Informal language, on the other hand, is particular to the writer’s personality or social group and assumes a closer and more familiar relationship between the writer and the reader. Its tone is casual, subjective, and intimate. Informal language can also employ slang and other words that would be inappropriate in formal writing.

As informal language is rarely used within most academic, technical, or business settings, the following examples show errors in the use of formal language:

• The director told the board members to push off. [Uses informal language]
• Professor Oyo dissed Marta when she arrived late to his class for the third time in a row. [Uses slang]
• The aromatic essence of the gardenia was intoxicating. [Uses pretentious words]
• The doctor told him to take salicylate to ease the symptoms of viral rhinorrhea. [Uses unnecessary jargon]

Employing formal language correctly, these examples could be revised as follows:

• The director told the board members to leave.
• Professor Oyo spoke disrespectfully to Marta when she arrived late to his class for the third time in a row.
• The scent of the gardenia was intoxicating.
• The doctor told him to take aspirin to ease his cold symptoms.

Sexist Usage

Gender-exclusive terms such as policeman and chairman are offensive to many readers today. Writers who are sensitive to their audience, therefore, avoid such terms, replacing them with expressions such as police officer and chairperson or chair. Most sexist usage in language involves masculine nouns, masculine pronouns, and patronizing terms.

Masculine Nouns

Do not use man and its compounds generically. For many people, these words are specific to men and do not account for women as separate and equal people. Here are some examples of masculine nouns and appropriate gender-neutral substitutions:

Making gender-neutral substitutions often entails using a more specific word for a generalized term, which adds more precision to writing.

Masculine Pronouns

Avoid using the masculine pronouns he, him, and his in a generic sense, meaning both male and female. Consider the following options:

1. Eliminate the pronoun. Every writer has an individual style. [Instead of “Every writer has his own style.”]

2. Use plural forms. Writers have their own styles. [Instead of “A writer has his own style.”]

3. Use he or she, one, or you as alternates only sparingly. Each writer has his or her own style. [Instead of “Each writer has his own style.”] One has an individual writing style. [Instead of “He has his own individual writing style.”] You have your own writing style. [Instead of “A writer has his own style.”]

Patronizing Terms

Avoid terms that cast men or women in gender-exclusive roles or imply that women are subordinate to men. Here are some examples of biased or stereotypical terms and their gender-neutral substitutions:

Biases and Stereotypes

Most writers are sensitive to racial and ethnic biases or stereotypes, but they should also avoid language that shows insensitivity to age, class, religion, and sexual orientation. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, using inclusive language can reduce mental biases. Researchers reported that participants who were assigned to use gender-neutral terms for certain tasks were more likely to use non-male names for other tasks, had increased positive feelings toward LGBT people, decreased their mental biases that favored men, and had a greater awareness of other genders.

3. Abbreviations and Acronyms

Abbreviations (the shortened form of a word or phrase) and acronyms (words formed from the initial letters of a phrase) are commonly used in technical writing. In some fields, including chemistry, medicine, computer science, and geographic information systems, acronyms are used so frequently that the reader can feel lost in an alphabet soup. However, the proper use of these devices enhances the reading process, fostering fluid readability and efficient comprehension.

Some style manuals devote entire chapters to the subject of abbreviations and acronyms, and your college library no doubt contains volumes that you can consult when needed. Here, we provide a few principles you can apply to use abbreviations and acronyms in your writing.

Abbreviations

• Typically, we abbreviate social titles (like Ms. and Mr.) and professional titles (like Dr., Rev.).
• Titles of degrees should be abbreviated when following someone’s name. However, in resumes and cover letters, you should avoid abbreviations
  • Gloria Morales-Myers, PhD
  • I received a Bachelor of Arts in 2014.
• Most abbreviations should be followed with a period (Mar. for March), except those representing units of measure (mm for millimeter).
• Typically, do not abbreviate geographic names and countries in text (i.e., write Saint Cloud rather than St. Cloud). However, these names are usually abbreviated when presented in “tight text” where space can be at a premium, as in tables and figures.
• Use the ampersand symbol (&) in company names if the companies themselves do so in their literature, but avoid using the symbol as a narrative substitute for the word and in your text.
• In text, spell out addresses (Third Avenue; the Chrysler Building) but abbreviate city addresses that are part of street names (Central Street SW).
• Try to avoid opening a sentence with an abbreviation; instead, write the word out.
• Latin abbreviations: write out except in source citations and parenthetical comments.
  • etc. : and so forth (et cetera—applies to things)
  • i.e. : that is (id est)
  • e.g. : for example (exempli gratia)
  • cf. : compare (confer)
  • et al. : and others (et alii—applies to people)
  • N.B. : note well (nota bene)

Acronyms

With few exceptions, present acronyms in full capital letters (FORTRAN; NIOSH). Some acronyms, such as scuba and radar, are so commonly used that they are not capitalized.

• Unless they appear at the end of a sentence, do not follow acronyms with a period.
  • NOAA is a really great organization.
  • I want to work for the USGS.
• Acronyms can be pluralized with the addition of a lowercase s
  • Please choose between these three URLs.
• Acronyms can be made possessive with an apostrophe followed by a lowercase s:
  • The DOD’s mandate will be published today.
• As subjects, acronyms should be treated as singulars, even when they stand for plurals; therefore, they require a singular verb
  • NASA is committed to . . .
• Always write out the first in-text reference to an acronym, followed by the acronym itself written in capital letters and enclosed by parentheses. Subsequent references to the acronym can be made just by the capital letters alone. For example:
  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a rapidly expanding field. GIS technology . . .
• Use acronyms for organizations: NASA, NBC, CIA.
• The acronym US can be used as an adjective (US citizen), but United States should be used when you are using it as a noun.

Abbreviations are to be avoided in most prose:

Different abbreviations and acronyms are treated differently. You can review this PDF to check the proper treatment of some commonly used abbreviations and acronyms. For a much more detailed listing of abbreviations and acronyms, you can check in the back pages of many dictionaries, or consult the free online version of the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual.

4. Numbers

The rules for expressing numbers are relatively simple and straightforward. You spell out numbers ten and below. The numbers above this (10-999,999) should be written with Arabic numerals. Starting at 1 million, write the Arabic numeral followed by the written word (million, billion, trillion, etc.).

• There were 60 dogs in the competition.
• I don’t think it’s possible to get 264 bracelets made in one week.
• This study is based on three different ideas
• In this treatment, the steel was heated 1.8 million different times.

If a sentence begins with a number, the number should be written out:

• Fourteen of the participants could not tell the difference between samples A and B.
• Eighteen hundred and eighty-eight was a very difficult year.
  • You may want to revise sentences like this, so the number does not come first: “The year 1888 was quite difficult.”

You should treat similar numbers in grammatically connected groups alike:

• Two dramatic changes followed: four samples exploded and thirteen lab technicians resigned.
• Sixteen people got 15 points on the test, thirty people got 10 points, and three people got 5 points.
  • In this sentence, there are two different “categories” of numbers: those that modify the noun people and those that modify the noun points. You can see that one category is spelled out (people) and the other is in numerals (points). This division helps the reader immediately spot which category the numbers belong to.

When you write a percentage, the number should always be written numerically (even if its ten or under). If you’re writing in a non-technical field, you should spell out the word percent. These same rules apply to degrees of temperature:

• The judges have to give prizes to at least 25 percent of competitors.
• The sample was heated to 80 degrees Celsius.

All important measured quantities—particularly those involving decimal points, dimensions, degrees, distances, weights, measures, and sums of money—should be expressed in numeral form:

• The metal should then be submerged for precisely 1.3 seconds.
• On average, the procedure costs $25,000.
• The depth to the water at the time of testing was 16.16 feet.

Check out these handy resources related to expressing numbers and numerals in text:

Technical Writing Best Practices – By the Numbers

“Using Numbers, Writing Lists” advice from Capital Community College website

5. Italics

Italic type, which slants to the right, has specialized uses.

1. Titles of works published independently (known as “containers” in MLA Style):

• The Atlantic Monthly (magazine)
• A Farewell to Arms (book)
• Leaves of Grass (book-length poems)
• The Wall Street Journal (newspaper)
• American Idol (television program)
• The Glass Menagerie (play)

2. Ships, aircraft, spacecraft, and trains

• Challenger (spacecraft)
• Leasat 3 (communications satellite)
• San Francisco Zephyr (train)

3. Italics are also used for words, letters, and numbers used as themselves in a sentence:

• The process of heat transfer is called conduction.
• The letter e is the most commonly used vowel.
• Many people consider 13 to be an unlucky number.

4. Italics can also be used for emphasis:

• “I said, ‘Did you buy the tickets?’ not ‘Would you buy the tickets?’”

Although underlining was used as a substitute for italics in the past, writers generally avoid it nowadays because underlining is used for other purposes (for example, to indicate a hyperlink in Web and other electronic writing).