Gobbledygook

Posted on January 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

Please read the following two sentences, and consider which is easier to understand:

First sentence:  According to “The Streisand Effect,” an article in the November 2023 issue of Vanity Fair by Radhika Jones, “Jackie Onassis, then an editor at Doubleday, invited [Barbra] Streisand to write a memoir. [Streisand] turned the offer down.”

Second sentence:  Barbara Streisand turned down an offer to write her memoirs when Jackie Onassis, then an editor at Doubleday, invited her, according to “The Streisand Effect,” an article in the November 2023 issue of Vanity Fair by Radhika Jones.

You chose the second version, I suspect.  Why?  Ask yourself what is the most important information in that sentence?  Is it the name of the article?  Is it the name of its author?  Is it the name of the magazine where the article appeared?  Is it the date of the article’s publication?  Is it that Jackie O. asked Streisand to write a memoir and Streisand said no?

The information at the end of the first sentence is the most important information.  Yet it appears 23 words into the sentence.  Why?  Because the sentence is poorly written, that’s why.  (I wrote the sentence for this blog, so no one’s feelings are hurt.)  The most important information—the subject of a sentence—should go first (with a few exceptions such as in poetry).

Yet inverted sentences like this appear everywhere.  I see them in student-written research papers.  It’s not the student’s fault.  Teachers have probably not taken the time to point out that the findings or conclusions of research are more important to readers than who found them and where they published their results.

To avoid gobbledygook, read over your sentences and ask yourself what the most important information is.  Almost always, that goes first.

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Posted in gobbledygook, how to write better, order of information in a sentence

Movie trailers offer writers techniques to hook readers

Posted on January 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Movie trailers are hooks to promote movies.  A trailer contains a series of snippets from a film which, its promoters hope, will lead you to view the film.  Trailers contain the most exciting, dramatic, scary, or humorous parts of a film, the parts most likely to lure you to see the whole film.

Usually, information in trailers is not presented in the same order as it is presented in the film.  Dramatic camera angles add edginess and energy.  The non-linear structure of trailers keeps the audience from guessing at the story line and ending.  You have to watch the film to find out.  Music provides atmosphere.  Voice-overs offer brief story lines.

Trailers shown on TV are usually 20 to 30 seconds long.  Trailers shown in movie theaters before a featured film is shown are longer, up to two-and-a-half minutes long.

Beginning in the 1970s, movie trailers were produced to be shown on prime-time TV at first, and then almost nonstop in the days before a movie’s release.  “Red band” trailers warn audiences of content not appropriate for some audiences, such as children.  Nowadays, many movie trailers are being custom made for various Internet sites and their audiences.

What can writers learn from trailers to improve their hooks? 

Some trailers begin by panning over scenery to set a mood or to identify a location.  Gentle farmland, fierce ocean waves breaking below cliffs, and a bird’s-eye view of New York’s skyscrapers identify vastly different locations and moods.  Farmland might suggest a rural, 19th century satire, or conversely, the site of the Battle of Hastings.  Crashing ocean waves might suggest a dangerous war invasion or a passionate romance.  And skyscrapers’ roofs might suggest a sophisticated comedy or a terrorist plan unfolding.  Writers can think of their eyes as cameras.  What scenery would cameras focus on to support the location and themes of a story, or to offer an ironical twist?

Trailers sometimes use repetitive sounds to entice an audience.  Music which sounds like car horns.  The chirping of birds.  The clicking of typewriter keys.  The cries of an unattended baby.  These instantly provide mood.  Writers can simulate sounds with words to hook readers.

A narrator’s voice can lure readers.  Though an audience can’t hear the voice, an audience can imagine how it sounds with good enough text description.  Writers can duplicate a voice’s tempo, its breathlessness, its harshness of tone, its childlike vocabulary or reasoning.

The next time a trailer comes across your screen, analyze how it hooks.  What techniques does the filmmaker use that you can use to hook readers?

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, hooks, movie trailers

Three examples of news hooks and eight techniques used in them

Posted on January 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

What is this “hook” that ELA teachers want students to start essays with?

A hook is any kind of information at the beginning of an essay which catches the reader’s attention and keeps the reader reading.  Let’s look at a few from news stories (not feature stories) from the January 12th edition of The New York Times:

  • “The Midwest Braces for a Blizzard, and More Severe Storms Will Slam the South.” People always want to know how approaching weather will affect them. This headline tells of extreme weather over a large section of the US, so it grabs readers’ attention.
  • “What Was Ron DeSantis’s Campaign Strategy in Iowa?” Millions of Americans support the Florida governor’s efforts to win the Republican nomination, and millions more want to know what DeSantis is up to.  This headline grabs readers’ attention.
  • “Elton John’s First Auction in 21 Years Has It All: Boots to Banksy.” Elton John is a musician with millions of fans.  An auction of his flamboyant clothes is like an auction of Princess Diana’s gowns, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event.  It entices readers.

News story headlines are good examples of what hooks should be.  Editors put the most important information first, the information which they think will be most devoured by readers.  This is called the inverted pyramid style.  News stories start with the most important information, continue with details of less importance, and trail off with details of little importance.

To heighten reader interest, headlines use powerful verbs.  In the first example above, the verbs “braces” and “slam” grab readers’ eyes.   You “brace” against something powerful which has the power to “slam” you.  Hmm.  Let me read more.

Another technique to heighten interest is to ask a question—not a question which can be answered with a yes or a no, but a question which demands thought by the reader.  The second example above does this when it asks what DeSantis’s campaign strategy was.

A third technique used in news story headline hooks is to name a celebrity whose very name will attract readers.  Ron DeSantis and Elton John do this.

Using a precise number—like “21 years”—is another luring technique.  There’s something honest about stating an exact number which also attracts readers.

Naming locations also attracts readers.  The first example names the Midwest and the South.  The second example names Iowa.  Readers with connections to those locations are drawn to the news stories naming them.

Another technique to draw readers is to use a figure of speech that works.  “From Boots to Bansky” shows alliteration.

“Boots to Bansky” also provokes curiosity.  People who know Elton John know that his performing outfits, including his boots, are outrageous.  But what about Bansky?  What is Bansky?  Why is Bansky named in the headline?  Readers’ curiosity may draw them into the article to find out.

To conclude, news story headlines are good examples of hooks which draw readers into news stories.

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If you are looking for a  writing tutor for your student, second grade through high school, please contact me.  I teach composition, grammar, vocabulary and SAT prep to students in the US and overseas.

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Posted in hooks

In an essay, which comes first: the hook or the thesis?

Posted on January 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

An eighth grader asked me for help writing a school-assigned essay.  Her teacher had given the class a fill-in-the-blanks organizer.  It was incredibly detailed.  In the introduction area was a blank with the word “hook,” and below it another blank with the word “thesis.”  For each of the two body paragraph areas were the words “citation, “explanation,” “citation,” and “explanation.”  At the end was the word “conclusion.”

I read the thesis the student had chosen which sounded okay.  Then I read the hook.  It was an unrelated quotation.  I pointed out to the student that the hook seemed to have nothing to do with the thesis.  “Huh?” she responded, and then explained at length how the hook was related to the thesis.  She looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t buy it,” I said.

I asked her what she had written first, the hook quotation or the thesis.  “The hook,” she said.

Of course.  This student was making three mistakes that I see over and over in student essays.

First, she did not write the thesis first.  In an essay, the most important sentence is the thesis.  That is the first sentence to write. Every other sentence needs to support the ideas in that thesis sentence.  If you don’t know what ideas are in the thesis, how can you write about them?

Second, she wrote the hook first, thinking (as her teachers may have told her) that the hook is where the essay begins.  The hook is where the reader begins reading an essay.  But it is not where the writer begins writing an essay. A good essay is thought though and written out of order.  The proper sequence in which to write an essay (after you have organized it) is

  1. Thesis, first;
  2. body paragraph topic sentences, second;
  3. detail sentences in the body paragraphs, third. These sentences back up the body paragraph topic sentences which in turn back up the thesis;
  4. introduction, fourth, including the hook if there is one; and
  5. conclusion, last.

The third mistake my student made was perhaps the most serious of all:  she didn’t recognize that her chosen hook did not introduce the ideas of her thesis.  She thought that her hook was so clever (and it was) that it didn’t matter if it was related to the ideas of her thesis.  It does matter.

Over and over, I work with students who focus on the structure of an essay rather than the substance of the essay.  Their essays are like Academy Award winning actresses in gorgeous gowns, sparkling jewelry, and splendid coifs whose speeches are either hollow or off-topic.

I asked my student to rewrite her hook.  She did because she wants a good grade, and I’m a teacher, so I probably know what I am advising her.  But I wonder if she understands that her original hook was irrelevant to the main idea of her essay.

 

Looking for a writing teacher for your child?  Contact me through this website.  I currently teach students in four states and one other country.

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Posted in essay conclusions, essay introduction, essay thesis, essay writing, thesis

What makes sentences great?

Posted on December 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

Do you collect things? My grandson collects Lego creations.  My husband collects carpentry tools.  My brother collects genealogical trivia.  I collect books on writing. 

Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, collects sentences.  He has just published what he considers the best ones of 2023, most submitted by readers.  Almost all are about politicians.  And almost all use one or more figures of speech, bringing complexity to the sentence meanings.  Yet many are a hoot.  To read 40 of them, go to https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/opinion/2023-journalism-writing-sentences.html

But what makes them “the best” sentences of 2023?  Let’s analyze a few.

Maureen Dowd, columnist for The New York Times, writes about an interview with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she stepped down from that office:  “I was expecting King Lear, howling at the storm, but I found Gene Kelly, singing in the rain.”

Dowd uses antithesis, a figure of speech which contrasts opposites.  King Lear, a tragic Shakespearean character, is contrasted with Gene Kelly, a blithe, happy-go-lucky dancer.  To intensify the contrast, Dowd describes King Lear as “howling at the storm” which his life has become and describes Kelly as “singing in the rain.”  Dowd expected to find Pelosi, stepping down from her role as the leader of the House of Representatives, to be angry.  Instead, she finds her “singing in the rain.”

Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri writes about the ethical shortcomings of Supreme Court justices:  “It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American billionaire, in possession of sufficient fortune, must be in want of a Supreme Court justice.”

Petri uses allusion, a figure of speech which calls to mind (in this case) the famous opening line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:  “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”  Petri keeps the grammar and changes just six words.  Anyone familiar with Austen’s famous line recognizes the sentence.  The humor comes from Petri’s keeping the tongue-in-cheek tone of the original.

Matt Bai, a columnist for the Washington Post, argues that vice presidential candidates do affect elections: “I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.”

One way to create humor is to lead readers down a path, so that readers think they know what to expect.  Then at the last second, or the last word in this case, twist the meaning.  The word “running” is repeated, leading readers to expect that the meaning of “running” will also be repeated.  But it isn’t.  “Running mate” is totally different from “running gag.”  The humor comes from verbal irony.

Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post writer Robin Givhan writes about President Jimmy Carter’s decision to use Hospice care for his final days: “Hospice care is not a matter of giving up. It’s a decision to shift our efforts from shoring up a body on the verge of the end to providing solace to a soul that’s on the cusp of forever.”

Givhan uses anthesis when she contrasts a body dying to a soul heaven-bound.  Jimmy Carter, a Christian, believes that life continues after death, so “on the cusp of forever” matches his expectations.  Givhan’s use of the word “soul” intensifies this expectation.

Anthony Lane, film critic for The New Yorker, comments on all the pink coloring in the film Barbie:  “Watching the first half-hour of this movie is like being waterboarded with Pepto-Bismol.”

Pepto-Bismol is a bubble-gum-pink colored liquid used for digestive issues, including diarrhea.  Waterboarding is a form of torture.  Torture is not funny, but the visual image of a person struggling to stay afloat in a pink liquid used for diarrhea shows what Lane thinks of all that pink in Barbie.

Figures of speech aren’t just for poems, as these noted newspaper columnists prove.  One way to learn how to use more figures of speech is to copy these “best” sentences, substituting your own words and ideas.  For example,

It is a truth universally acknowledged that woman in possession of unwanted Christmas gifts must be in want of Goodwill.”

Happy New Year.

 

 

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Posted in allusi, allusion, antithesis, English Writing Instruction, Figures of speech, humor in writing, irony--verbal, sentence structure