The Segregating Style
Definition:
Grammatically simple, expressing a single idea. Consist of relatively short, uncomplicated sentences.
Textual Examples:
He writes, at most, 750 words a day. He writes and rewrites. He polishes and repolishes. He works in solitude. He works with agony. He works with sweat. And that is the only way to work at all
Advantages:
Useful in descriptive and narrative writing. Analyzes a complicated perception or action into its parts and arranges these in significant order. Simple yet effective, emphatic and offer variety.
Disadvantages:
Less useful in exposition, where you must combine ideas in subtle graduations of logic and importance. Can become too simplistic and lose its character.
Uses:
Narratives, descriptive passages. Used for emphasis in longer sentences.
The Freight-Train Style
Definition:
Couples short, independent clauses to make longer sequential statements.
Multiple Coordination (MC)– using ‘and’ to link coordinating clauses
Parataxis – independent clauses linked by semicolons
Triadic Sentence – 3 clauses using MC or Parataxis
Textual Examples:
And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
MC – It was a hot day and the sky was bright and the road was white and dusty.
Parataxis – The habits of the natives are disgusting; the women hawk on the floor, the forks are dirty; the
trees are poor; the Pont Neuf is not a patch on the London Bridge; the cows are too skinny.
Advantages:
Can link a series of events, ideas, impressions, feelings, or perceptions as immediately as possible, without judging their relative value or imposing a logical structure upon them.
Disadvantages:
Does not handle ideas subtly, and implies that all linked thoughts are equally significant. Cannot show precise logical relationships (cause and effect). Can continue without stopping places.
Uses:
Children’s writings or childlike visions; Experience of the mind descriptions; ‘Stream of Conscience’
The Cumulative Sentence
Definition:
Initial independent clause followed by many subordinate constructions, which accumulate details about the person, place, event or idea.
Textual Examples:
A creek ran through the meadow, winding and turning, clear water running between steep banks of black earth, with shallow places where you build a dam.
She was then twenty-one, a year out of Smith College, a dark, shy, quiet girl with a fine mind and a small but pure gift for her thoughts on paper.
Advantages:
Can handle a series of events; Can act as a frame, enclosing the details; Details may precede or follow the main clause using these, those, this, that and such as preceding nouns
Disadvantages:
Open ended (like freight-train)
Uses:
Description, character sketches; Less often in narration
The Parallel Style
Definition:
Two or more words or construction stand in an identical grammatical relationship to the same thing. All subjects must be in the same form.
Textual Examples:
In its energy, its lyrics, its advocacy of frustrated joys, rock is one long symphony of protest.
Advantages:
Impressive and pleasing to hear; Economical – using one element to serve three or four others; Enriches meaning by emphasizing subtle connections between words
Disadvantages:
Suits only ideas that are logically parallel – three or four conditions of the same effect; Is formal for modern taste; Can be too wordy just by being a parallel structure
Uses:
Can be used in all forms of writing for emphasis or description – emotional or intellectual.
The Balanced Sentence
Definition:
Two parts, roughly equivalent in length. It may also be spilt on either side.
Textual Examples:
In a few moments, everything grew black, and the rain poured down like a cataract.
Visit either you like; they’re both mad.
Children played about her; and she sang as she worked.
Advantages:
The construction may be balanced and parallel; Pleasing to eyes and ears and gives shape to the sentence;
Uses objectivity, control and proportion
Disadvantages:
Unsuitable for conveying the immediacy of raw experience or the intensity of strong emotion; Formality is likely to seem too elaborate for modern readers.
Uses:
Irony and comedy or just about anything else.
The Subordinating Style
Definition:
Expresses the main clause and arranges points or lesser importance around it, in the form of phrases and independent clauses
Loose Structure: main clause comes first
Periodic Structure: main clause follows subordinate parts
Convoluted Structure: main clause is split in two, subordinate parts intruding
Centered Structure: main clause occupies the middle of the sentence
Textual Examples:
Loose Sentence: We must always be weary of conclusions drawn from the ways of social insects, since their evolutionary track lies so far from ours.
Periodic Sentence: There is no future for the black ghetto, the future of all Negroes is diminished.
Convoluted Sentence: White men, at the bottom of their hearts, know this.
Centered Sentence: Having wanted to walk on the sea like St. Peter, he had taken an involuntary bath, losing his mitre and the better part of his reputation.
Advantages:
Loose sentences: Puts things first – like we talk ;Expresses a complete idea or perception
Periodic sentences: Emphatic – It delays the principle thought, increasing climax
Convoluted sentences: Simply offers variety in style and emphasis for the words before and after commas
Centered Sentence: Good in long sentences – can order events or ideas
Disadvantages:
Loose sentences: Lack emphasis and easily becomes formless – no clear ending points
Periodic sentences: Too long of a delay can be confusing; Less advantageous in informal
Convoluted sentences: Formal and taxing – interrupting elements grow longer and more complicated
Centered sentence: Not as emphatic as periodic or as informal as loose
Uses:
Loose sentences: Colloquial, informal, and relaxed
Periodic sentences: Formal and literal
Convoluted sentences: Formal writing, used sparingly
Centered sentence: Formal, for long and complicated subjects to include event as well as grammatical order
The Fragment
Definition:
Single word, phrase or dependent clause standing alone as a sentence
Textual Examples:
I saw her. Going down the street.
Sweeping criticism of this style throws less light on the subject than on the critic himself. A light not always impressive.
Advantages:
Emphasis
Disadvantages:
Unsupported fragments become grammatical errors fixed by rejoining the modifier with the sentence.
Only used occasionally
Uses:
Formal and informal writing – for emphasis