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Writing Guide 1.0
Harrison Kleiner
"Many people assume that professional writers don't need to rewrite; the words just fall into
place. On the contrary, careful writers can't stop fiddling. . . . Students, I realize, don't share my
love of rewriting. They think of it as punishment: extra homework or extra infield practice."
William Zinsser, 1998
Writing Guide 1.0
1
A. Introduction
2
B. Tone
3
1. Informality.
3
C. Expression and Precision
4
2. Definitive Statements:
4
3. Overstatement
4
4. Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Meaningless Words
5
5. Being Concise
6
6. Repetition of Words or Phrases
6
7. Choppy Sentences
7
D. Grammar and Spelling
8
8. Subject - Verb Agreement
8
9. Punctuation: Comma (,)
9
10. Punctuation: Colon (:), Semicolon (;), and Dash (-)
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11. Punctuation: Period (.), Question Mark (?), Exclamation point (!)
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12. Quotation marks
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13. Possessive
12
14. Pronouns
12
15. Dangling Participles and Misplaced Modifiers
13
16. Prepositions
14
E. Organization and Structure
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17. Paragraphs
14
F. Conclusion
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A. Introduction
One mark of an educated person is the capacity to express himself clearly and beautifully both
in speech and writing. In both cases this means communicating sound reasoning (logic: sound
inferences and demonstrations) in a persuasive manner (rhetoric: the art of persuading in a
beautiful way).
This writing guide is meant to help you develop your ability to write sound and beautiful
work. To begin with, writing well requires a mastery of the basic rules of our language. Most of
this guide is dedicated to those basic rules. But good writing also uses words carefully so that
you express just the meaning you wish to express. Those unambiguous word choices and
phrases need to be put together in a well organized and paced paper that is engaging to read.
And your arguments need to be organized in such a way that they are clear and logically sound.
Those are all skills you can develop and where we have relatively well defined rules. But as you
develop those skills, you will also start to develop your own style and then will be well on your
way to writing sound and rhetorically beautiful work.
The most important part of any paper is the content so it is imperative that you have excellent
content. A work that is un- or mis-informed can be quite miserable to read even if it is
mechanically sound. Great style with lousy content does not count for much. But, on the other
hand, excellent content does not guarantee anything either. Very often professors cannot
understand the content of what a student is saying because the writing mechanics and style are so
bad. If the reader cannot understand what you are saying because it is unclear or because the
grammar and mechanics are distracting, the content gets lost. This writing guide will teach you
nothing about content. Rather, it is dedicated to communicating some general writing style rules
and tips that will help you write well in a wide range of contexts.
There is nothing especially original here. I am not here interested in originality but rather in
communicating general rules and practices for writing well. Within these rules I encourage you
to find your own voice and style. Developing your own voice takes time and practice. As with
all things, practice makes perfect.
A note on the genesis of this Writing Guide. I owe considerable debt to Prof. Mark Damen.
Prof. Damen is the one who inspired me to create my own writing guide, and his writing guide
served as a a starting point for mine.1 I have borrowed from it by adopting and adapting to my
own ends some of his format, organization, and sections.2 One will also find the influence of
1
Prof. Damen’s writing guide is available online here: http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/
WritingGuide/00intro.htm
2
In the interest of avoiding a messy document with lots of citations and with the express
permission of Prof. Damen, I have been rather spare in citing my uses of Prof. Damen’s writing
guide. I indicate usage only when I have used a whole section.
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the always reliable Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. My edition is the 3rd
edition, published in 1979, and is one I have used since I was in junior high school. I would
encourage all students to buy an edition of Elements of Style. Finally, I have for years referenced
the Purdue Online Writing Lab, which is a great resource.3
B. Tone
In my experience, students are much too informal in their tone when they write college
papers. Perhaps this should not be surprising given our increasingly casual if not coarse culture
and that much of the writing students do is on social media and is extremely casual. There is, of
course, a time and a place for casual banter, sarcasm, even boorish jokes. But academic papers
are not the place for such things. Keep in mind that you are pursuing the third highest degree
this land confers; treat your academic writing with a dignity proportionate to that honor. That
means setting sarcasm, abbreviations, and cuteness aside in an effort to write clear and
sophisticated papers. This section of the Writing Guide will address common issues with tone.
1. Informality.
I hope that students feel very comfortable with me and their other professors. In class there is
likely to be banter and joking around as people enjoy the discussion and each other and that is all
well and good. But there are at least three reasons to avoid informal language in your papers.
First, informal banter and sarcasm can be easily misunderstood, especially in written work when
one does not have the benefit of body language to cue a certain meaning. Second, it is important
to remember that your professors are not your friends. We are doing important work here in
helping you to become educated persons. Though we all should have fun with education,
assigned written work is rarely the place for it. Third, most written work you submit in college
will be for a grade. Being too casual in your writing is likely to undermine the quality of your
work, since it often leads to lack of precision and generally poor and unclear expression of what
you understand.
Some specific advice and common rules in academic writing:
• Do not use slang, sarcasm, colloquialisms, or jokes.
• Avoid contractions. Write “they do not” instead of “they don’t.”
• Do not use abbreviations like &, #, or other symbols. Use of “etc.” should also be
avoided. If you have additional reasons that are worth mentioning, then mention them.
• Write out numbers (four, nineteenth) unless you are writing dates (476 BC).
3
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
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C. Expression and Precision
Since professors can mark up your papers for grammatical errors without marking up the
paper for issues with content, or vice versa, one might be led to believe that writing and content
are two separable things. In fact they are not. You are expressing your meaning in language, so
the meaning you express cannot be separated from your phrasing and word choices.
A lack of precision can be fatal to the success of a paper, especially in fields like philosophy
where what we are wrestling with is the meaning of ideas, texts, and things. Minor changes in
wording can have dramatic changes on the meaning of what is expressed. You should slave over
your language, making sure that what you are saying is exactly what you mean to say. Ask
yourself whether the sentence could be misconstrued, if it is at all unclear, or if the phrasing is
awkward or cumbersome to understand.
2. Definitive Statements:
Make definitive statements. Students often use wishy-washy statements or appear to waffle
on their commitments in papers. They will say, Descartes might be the most important
philosopher since Aristotle, instead of making the bolder assertion that Descartes is the greatest
philosopher since Aristotle. I suspect that students resort to this wishy-washiness because they
lack confidence in their understanding. But the wishy-washiness does not help. Be bold; make a
clear assertion. If your professor thinks you have it wrong, that you made your claim with
timidity by saying “might seem to maybe possibly be” will not help you. It actually hurts you,
since it suggests your thinking is not complete and that you still have not made up your mind
about something. Though there is a place for words like “may,” “might,” “possibly”, and
“seem,” students should tend to avoid them.
3. Overstatement
Having just encouraged you to be bold and to make definitive assertions, I now caution you to
avoid the other extreme. While you should state your case clearly and definitely, you should not
overstate your case. Overstatements should be avoided since exaggerations are untrue, they thus
weaken your argument, and they invite a reader to disagree with you.
In our everyday informal expression, people often use exaggeration for effect. For example,
Everyone loves the Harry Potter books. To challenge such a thing might seem nitpicky in casual
conversation. But academic readers tend to be quite nitpicky, so you are rarely well served in
your writing by use of exaggeration. Exaggerated statements like, No one thinks the ontological
argument is sound, or Everyone agrees that Descartes’ has a circularity problem in the
Meditations, should be avoided. Back off the claim a little. Instead say, Most think there is
circular reasoning in Descartes’ Meditations, though there are debates about how fatal this
circularity would be to his overall argument. Also avoid exaggerated generalizations. Instead of
saying Phenomenologists never make arguments, say, Phenomenologists rarely use what most
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analytical philosophers would recognize as philosophical argumentation, preferring the power of
description over syllogistic reasoning. Bottom line: anytime you find yourself writing words
like “all” “always,”. “completely,” “only,” or “never,” be mindful of the claim you are making.
4. Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Meaningless Words
Writing is vague or ambiguous when the claims you are making are not specific enough to be
informative. A mantra I repeat to my students is to always communicate in such a way that you
are saying something specific, substantive, and substantiated. This goes for whole papers,
paragraphs, and individual sentences.
Whether or not an expression is considered vague depends on the context. If you are sick,
you might say to a friend that you have the “flu.” If you are speaking to an infectious disease
physician, saying, “I have the flu” could be considered ambiguous since you might have a
bacterial infection rather than influenza. So ambiguity is audience dependent.
College writing assignments, with perhaps a few exceptions, expect maximum clarity. I
encourage my students to write their papers on the assumption that their audience is an
intelligent non-philosopher. Be sufficiently specific that your mother or father (assuming they
are reasonably intelligent) could read your paper and understand what you are talking about and
what you are arguing. Aim, then, for maximum clarity.
Sometimes a statement can lack clarity or meaning because words are used that are
meaningless in the context. For example, Descartes is incredible, is a meaningless statement.
What is the reader supposed to think when they read these sentences? Is Descartes “incredible”
in the sense that he is not believable or is extremely unlikely? Of course that is not the intended
meaning, but the ambiguity invites confusion. For another example, consider, The empiricists are
the greatest. The greatest what? The greatest frauds, the greatest cooks, the greatest
philosophers?
For every sentence that you write, consider whether or not you could make it any clearer.
“Hobbes thinks everyone is selfish,” is, I suppose, a generally accurate statement of what Hobbes
thinks. But compare that to this, “Hobbes thinks that self-interest is the ultimate motivation for
all human action, so that even apparently altruistic or cooperative actions are really motivated by
a self-interest in living in a stable and secure society.” This sentence is much clearer and much
more substantive.
Some words or phrases are simply ambiguous. While these ambiguous phrases have their
place in our language, they do not have a place in your writing. If you are helping a friend move
and ask how many more boxes are in the truck, “a lot” is a reasonable enough response. But “a
lot” or “a little” are ambiguous and never give the reader much clarity or specificity. In
academic writing, I have a hard time imagining it ever being useful to say “a lot” or “a little.”
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Precise phrasing and overall clarity also require that you speak as concretely and plainly as
possible. Often you will be required to use some of the technical jargon from the field, but be
sure to clearly define that jargon in ordinary language. Remember that you are writing the paper
so that an intelligent person with no training in the field could read and understand it. That
means introducing jargon but explaining it clearly. This also demonstrates understanding on
your part. Some students excel at repeating the jargon without ever really understanding what
they are saying. But, as I am sure you know from experience, if you can explain something in
ordinary language that is a good indication than you really understand it.
5. Being Concise
Be as concise as possible, and that means avoiding any unnecessary words or avoiding
unnecessarily wordy phrasing. Try to make every sentence and paragraph as dense as you can,
without sacrificing clarity of expression. Beauty has as much to do with what is excluded as
what is included: the beautiful drawing has not unnecessary lines, the elegant machine no
unnecessary parts.
When you write and revise, look for any occasion to tighten things up. For example, instead
of “in spite of the fact that,” use “although.” “This is a philosophy that …,” is much more
cumbersome to read than, “This philosophy …” Instead of Plato, who was a Greek philosopher,
argued that the Forms perfectly instantiated their attributes, write Plato, a Greek philosopher,
argued that the Forms perfectly instantiated their attributes.
Using the active voice tends to allow for more concise and clearer writing. In the active
voice, the subject “acts” the verb and so you get a more direct expression. In the passive voice,
the subject receives the “action” of the verb. The eternality of the God was believed by most
medieval philosophers, is in the passive voice. Most medieval philosophers believed in the
externality of God, is in the active voice. The latter is not only more concise, it is also a clearer
and more direct statement.
6. Repetition of Words or Phrases
Precise phrasing usually requires varying word choice throughout a sentence or paragraph.
Varying word choice communicates that you have considered the issue with subtly and care, that
you are making important destinations and considering the various aspects of the issue with
specificity and substance. Consider the following:
Different aspects of a thesis require different expressions, that is, a different word
reflecting a different perspective on your paper's theme as it relates to different
circumstances.
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Different, got that? No? Then I'll show you by varying the words in what I just said, and see if
the point isn't clearer.
Different aspects of a thesis require their own expressions, that is, a certain word
chosen to reflect each individual perspective on the theme as it relates to
particular circumstances.
Even if the second sentence is not especially clear to you, it at least it sounds more intelligent.
And I think this is clearer, and the diversity of expression suggests greater subtly, depth, texture,
and range in your thinking. Don’t become wed to a thesaurus, though. The value in varying
your words needs to be balanced with the value that comes from writing as plainly and
concretely as possible.
Mixing up your wording and phrasing also adds considerable to the beauty of your written
work. One way a paper can be ugly is by being monotonous and repetitive. And it also avoids
the awful monotony of repetitive words or phrasing. “Plato argued that there were Forms. Plato
argued that those Forms were perfect and immutable. Plato argued that they were also the real
objects of knowledge.” Avoid this sort of repetition by mixing up words and phrasing as well as
mixing up sentence structure and pace.
The moral of the story: Be specific and clear. Define your terms. Never leave your reader
wondering what you might mean. Vary your words and phrasing to maximize clarity and
specificity of meaning and to make the experience of reading your paper more enjoyable.
7. Choppy Sentences4
Small sentences are boring to read. Many of them strung together look bad. They appear
simple. Your thoughts look simple, too. It's like you cannot sustain an idea for more than
a few words. You can think in only trivial, simplistic ways. Small thoughts seem to come
from small minds. You will leave your reader with the impression of simplemindedness. Is
that what you want?
Many short sentences in succession make it appear that a writer is incapable of sustaining a
complex thought. Rather than small, choppy sentences, construct ones that have some weight
and depth. That does not always mean length, but formal academic writing tends to avoid, for
instance, more than three sentences in a row with fewer than ten words in them. While an
occasional short sentence is good because it delivers a strong “punch”, the short sentence must
be set off by longer ones so its brevity stands out.
If you find that you readily write in choppy sentences, it is a very easy problem to solve. Add
some "and's," "or's" and “but's" or by replacing periods with commas to construct parenthetical
4
This whole section is taken from Mark Damen’s writing guide, with a few very minor changes.
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elements. In other words, push some of the sentences together and make compound sentences
linked by conjunctions. Or, even better, throw in some subordination, that is, clauses. Clauses
are sentences units introduced by words called subordinating conjunctions, like "When . . .,"
"Since . . .," "Although . . .," and "Even if . . .”
The lesson here is to turn your choppy sentences into longer, more complex ones by making
them compound sentences with several subjects and verbs. The reason for doing that in formal
writing is simple. When your writing is more intricate, it makes your thinking look that way, too.
It is really a very easy thing to do, as a revision of the choppy sentences at the opening of this
section shows. By adding subordination and creating compound sentences, I can quickly and
easily improve the presentation of these same thoughts.
Small sentences are boring to read and, in fact, many of them strung together look
bad because they appear simple. If your thoughts look simple, it will seem like you
cannot sustain an idea for more than a few words and can think in only trivial,
simplistic ways. Since small thoughts seem to come from small minds, you will
leave your reader with the impression of simplemindedness. Is that what you
want?
In sum, here is a good guideline for whether you are writing in choppy sentences or not. If
over the course of four or more successive lines, there are more periods than lines (i.e. fewer
lines than sentences), your syntax are too abbreviated and you need to add something to make
your sentences longer.
D. Grammar and Spelling
8. Subject - Verb Agreement
The most basic rule of writing is to have your subject and verb agree. Singular subjects get
paired with singular verbs. Socrates is a philosopher, not Socrates are a philosopher. When the
subject is plural or is composed of two or more nouns, use a plural verb. Philosophers are
inquisitive or Plato and Hume are very different thinkers. In simple sentences, this is usually
quite obvious to your eye or ear. But errors can occur when the sentence structure gets more
complex.
Some quick tips:
• Use a singular verb after every, each, either, anyone, someone, everyone, nobody. For
example: Every argument is interesting, even if not compelling. Each one of Descartes’
arguments is weak.
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•
Students often wrongly believe that words that intervene between the subject and the verb
will change the verb’s number. There is no difference in the subject verb agreement in the
next two sentences:
Plato begins with the assumption that reason has the power to ascertain truth.
Plato, and all of the later Platonists, begins with the assumption that reason has
the power to ascertain truth.
•
If a sentence begins with “there is/are”, the verb should agree with what follows the verb.
There are many issues with that argument. There is only one counter-argument.
9. Punctuation: Comma (,)
Commas have many uses but are often misused. I will here try to explain their most common
uses.
(a) Commas are used to distinguish terms in a series. When listing a series, you place a
comma after all but the final term in the series. For example, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle agree
that sophistry is a miscarriage of reason’s proper end or Dense, difficult, and confusing texts can
be fatiguing for students new to philosophy.
(b) Commas are used right before a conjunction when connecting two independent clauses.
For example, His argument started off well, but he failed to provide adequate evidence.
(c) Commas should be used to set off parenthetical elements in a sentence, which might be
phrases, clauses, or words. For example: The best way to read, whether for leisure or for
serious study, is to begin by figuring out what kind of book you are reading. Or The late 18th
century, when Kant was writing, was a time of great optimism in Europe. Or In such cases,
however, the principle does not seem to apply.
(d) Use commas after introductory phrases, clauses, or words.
Introductory phrase: Having proven his point, Plato moves on to the question of
the immortality of the soul.
Introductory clause: Since the world is so orderly, Aquinas concludes there must
be an intelligent designer.
Introductory word: However, one might disagree with the conclusion.
(e) Commas can be used to punctuate abbreviations like etc., i.e., e.g., or Ph.D. For example,
Books, notes, etc., must be put away prior to taking the test.
(f) Commas are used to set off quotations. Socrates says, “The unexamined life is not worth
living.”
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Use of commas is often essential to preserving your intended meaning. Consider the
following two sentences:
Inside the student was restless.
Inside, the student was restless.
The meaning of those two sentences is quite different.
10. Punctuation: Colon (:), Semicolon (;), and Dash (-)
Both colons and semicolons are used to connect something closely to a clause that preceded it.
They tend to have greater punch than a comma, and can help you if you find yourself with a
series of choppy sentences.
A colon can be used to introduce a list of terms after an independent clause. It is important to
make sure you have a complete sentence prior to the colon.
Dr Kleiner has: two favorite books. (wrong)
Dr Kleiner has two favorite books: Plato’s Republic and the Tolkien’s Lord of the
Rings. (right)
In these cases, what comes after the colon is meant to provide detail concerning what came
before the colon.
A colon may also be used after an independent clause to set up a quotation that amplifies or
supports the independent clause. Levinas is emphasizing our responsibility and guilt, appealing
to a line from Dostoevsky: “Each of us is guilty before everyone fore everyone, and I more than
the others.”
Finally, colons can be used to connect two independent clauses. This should be done when
the second clause clearly amplifies or explains the first. For example: The Philosophy Honors
Society takes things very seriously: they even include tiki torches of wisdom in their official
ceremonies.
Semicolons are also used to connect two independent clauses when those clauses are not
conjoined with a conjunction (see above). What a semicolon can allow you to do is show a close
relationship between two independent clauses in a way that is more forceful than connecting
those clauses with a conjunction. Consider the following.
Aquinas’ Summa is extremely compelling; it is full of sound arguments.
Aquinas’ Summa is extremely compelling for it is full of sound arguments.
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Aquinas’ Summa is extremely compelling. It is full of sound arguments.
The first seems to me the best. It suggests a close connection between the two independent
clauses while being more concise and forceful than the second. The third seems to me plainly
the weakest, since no close connection between the two independent clauses is implied.
A dash is generally considered less formal, but I think it can have a place in formal writing.
Use it if other punctuation seems awkward. Oftentimes it is used as a substitute for parentheses.
These are typically used for appositives - a noun phrase that renames or describes a noun you
just used. That sentence was an example. Here is another: Plato’s Parmenides - a later dialogue
- puts forward a much different picture of Socrates.
All of these punctuations are useful and can be beautifully used. Having said that, students
should mostly stick to commas and periods.
11. Punctuation: Period (.), Question Mark (?), Exclamation
point (!)
Periods, questions marks, and exclamation points all function as stops to a sentence.
I would suggest making very sparing use of question marks. It is almost always a bad idea to
ask the reader questions in an academic paper. Rhetorical questions are simply annoying to read.
Other questions can start to be annoying, can’t they? After all, I am reading your paper to find
out what you think, aren’t I? Point is, you should be in the business of making definitive claims.
You should never use an exclamation point in academic writing. There is no need to yell in
order to make a point emphatically. Using more than one exclamation point (“!!!”) at the end of
a sentence is an especially egregious grammatical sin.
12. Quotation marks
Quotation marks are used to indicate when you are using someone else’s words. You may
also use quotation marks to indicate the title of a work, though most academic writing tends to
use italics instead (Plato’s Sophist instead of Plato’s “Sophist”).
•
•
Punctuating quotations is typically where one finds some confusion. Some quick tips:
Semicolons, colons, and dashes always go outside the quotation marks.
If a question mark or an exclamation point is part of the title of something, put it inside the
quotation marks. For example, I love David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” That is not a question
but a statement (the title of the song has a question mark). But if you are asking a question,
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put the question mark outside the quotation marks. For example, Was your soul also defiled
by watching Miley Cyrus twerk to “Give it 2 U”?
•
A common question is whether one should put a period inside or outside quotation marks at
the end of a sentence. The standard practice in American English is to put it inside the
quotation marks. One of my favorite poems is Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur.”
However, in countries still more influenced by British English, you would follow the rather
more logical route of seeing where the period best fits. This often means putting the the
period outside the quotations. So you would write One of my favorite poems is Gerard
Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur”. I frankly prefer the British system here since it makes
more sense to me. However, we are writing in America so I would suggest following the
American convention.
13. Possessive
The possessive singular of a noun is made by adding “’s”. For example: “Aristotle’s
argument” or “the philosopher’s dog.” If it is a proper name that ends in an “s”, there are two
acceptable ways to indicate possession. You can simply add apostrophe after the name
(“Descartes’ view”) or you can add an “ ’s” after the name (“Descartes’s view”). While either is
acceptable, my own preference is for the former. If you wish to indicate that a plural name has
possession, then you add an apostrophe after the “s” (“the Platonists’ view”).
Pronouns add a wrinkle to these general rule. Indefinite pronouns do require an apostrophe
(“one’s views” or “someone else’s book”) while nominal possessive pronouns do not have an
apostrophe. So pronouns like “its,” “hers,” “ours,” or “theirs” do not use an apostrophe. A
common error is to confuse “it’s” (a contraction of “it is”) and its (a possessive pronoun).
14. Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that is used as a substitute for a noun. There are personal pronouns that
take the place of common and proper nouns. I, me, we, us, you, she, her, he, him, they, them, it
take the place of common (woman, country) or proper (Amy, France). There are also relative
pronouns (that, which, who, whom, whose, whichever, whoever, whomever), demonstrative
pronouns (this, that, these, those), indefinite pronouns (anybody, anyone, anything, each, either,
everybody, everything, neither, nobody, etc.), reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, ourselves,
himself, herself, etc.), interrogative pronouns (what, who, which, whose, whom), and possessive
pronouns (my, your, our, his, her, its, mine, ours, etc.).
The primary problem I see in pronoun usage is where there is a lack of clarity in pronoun
referents. Plato disagrees with Aristotle on the nature of forms, and he is right. Who is the “he”
in that sentence? It is somewhat unclear. To avoid this possible confusion, read over your
sentence and find the last thing to which your pronoun might refer. If that is the proper referent,
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there will be no confusion. Augustine tried to debunk the Manichaeans and he was successful.
Since the only singular noun in the sentence is Augustine, the use of the pronoun is clear.
Another common confusion with pronouns has to do with when to employ “who” as opposed
to “that” or “which.” The basic rule: use “that” or “which” when you are referring to things and
“who(m) when you are referring to people.
A note on gender: Some in the university are deeply offended by using masculine pronouns to
refer to groups of men or women. I am not one of those people. The convention of using
masculine pronouns to indicate mixed genders is a very old convention. I hasten to note that no
woman in the world has had her lot improved by spelling “woman” as “womyn”, by saying “he
or she”, or by replacing all singular pronouns with “they.” And the cost to the beauty of the
language is severe. Peter Kreeft, my mentor, made the point clearly: “Those who insist on
changing the centuries-old convention by which “he” is shorthand for “he or she” are invited to
pay their dues to the newly neutered grammar god and add a “she” to each “he” in the following
sentence, then read it aloud. If he (or she) does not have a in ear for language, he (or she) will
change his (or her) mind about his (or her) linguistic “improvement”, I (or we) think.”
15. Dangling Participles and Misplaced Modifiers
Modifiers are words or phrases that modify a noun, typically by adding some detail to the
sentence. A modifier is dangling when it is not clear which noun in the sentence is being
modified. A modifier is misplaced when the placement of the modifier leads to confusion or lack
of clarity. Groucho Marx used this grammatical error for comedic effect. “The other day I shot
an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.” Funny as that may be,
this should obviously be avoided in your academic writing.
Perhaps the most common error with modifiers is dangling participles. Participles are verbal
adjectives that end in -ing or -ed. They are called “verbals” since they are based on a verb, but
they function as an adjective in the sentence since they modify a noun.
The thinking philosopher was quiet.
Tired, the student set Hobbes’ Leviathan aside and took a nap.
The participial phrase must clearly modify the intended subject of the sentence. When there is
confusion on this, it can radically change the meaning of the sentence.
Flitting gaily from flower to flower, the football player watched the bee.
These are called “dangling participles”, since it is not clear which noun they are modifying. You
can avoid the confusion by clearly tying the participial phrase to the intended noun. For
example: The football player watched the bee flitting gaily from flower to flower.
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16. Prepositions
Prepositions are words that typically indicate location in either time or space: at, of, by,
toward, along, under, without, etc. Some will argue that you should never leave a preposition
stranded at the end of a sentence. I am not at all bothered by it, so feel free to do so. Winston
Churchill was once!14 asked about his habit of ending sentences with prepositions, and he
replied, “That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.” Point made, I believe.
E. Organization and Structure
Most of what this guide has covered to this point has to do with individual sentences. That is,
of course, important. But every bit as important is how you put your sentences together into
paragraphs and how those paragraphs are put together into a whole paper. Having a clear
structure to your paper is essential to writing good paper. I suggest you lay out your thoughts in
advance by creating an outline. Think about the best order to present your ideas, keeping in
mind that the order the ideas came to you is not necessarily the best order to present them to
others.
17. Paragraphs
Paragraphs are the most obvious way to structure your ideas in a paper. They indicate to the
reader that some ideas belong together, and that a transition has been made to a new point or
argument. Avoid paragraphs that are too long or too short. As a general rule, avoid paragraphs
that are less than three sentence long. And if your paragraph starts running up to more than ten
sentences, you might look for an organic place within the paragraph to divide the thought process
up into two paragraphs. While this is not necessary, it makes your paper more accessible to the
reader. Even careful readers can get lost in long paragraphs, and long paragraphs can be a
intimidating.
However you divide up your paragraphs, make sure that a paragraph flows with other
paragraphs around it but is also an independent unit of its own. Give the reader cues that you are
moving from one thing to the next by having clear transitions. Make steady use of transition
words and phrases at the beginning of a paragraph. The idea is to break up your paper into units
that are recognizably distinct. In short papers, those units will be paragraphs. In long papers,
you might divide your paper up into sections, each of which is composed of a number of
paragraphs.
Note of a pet peeve on my part: do not end paragraphs with a quotation from a text. The texts
in philosophy are difficult, the meaning often unclear. You should never leave a quoted text
unexplained. When you end a paragraph with a quotation, it usually means it is left unexplained.
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F. Conclusion
This grammar guide is not anywhere close to comprehensive. It is meant to identify some of
the most basic lessons in grammar and writing that I find myself wishing my students knew.
Great writers are not made in a single paper. Writing, like every skill, requires considerable
practice before competency, much less mastery, are achieved. The best thing you can do is to
write often and revise even more often. Try to identify your problem areas, and work on them.
Once you resolve those, up the level of self-criticism and find more minor issues in your writing
that could be improved. My hope is that you outgrow this modest writing guide in relatively
short order and move on to higher level work in writing and rhetoric.