Some Common Weaknesses in Prose Style; and How To Strengthen Them

1. Employ a vocabulary that you are comfortable with--that “sounds like you”; but don’t sacrifice correct grammar and usage, either. Put another way, avoid fancy-sounding words or words you choose because they seemingly make you sound “intellectual.” Thus instead of “Pym’s maturation has come full circle at the terminus of Poe’s literary creation,” say simply, “By the end of Poe’s novel, Pym has matured.”

2. Avoid wordiness: bloated sentences containing more words than you need to convey meaning. The example above is wordy. So too is “Due to the fact that Poe is very dramatic in the writing of his tales, it can be said that he personally was somewhat theatrical.” Instead, say: “The dramatic intensity of Poe’s tales equalled his own theatrical personality.”

3. Try to avoid cliches--phrases that are ineffective because of repeated use: “like a ton of bricks,” “dead as a doornail,” and so on.

4. Stay away from empty generalizations, especially in which you “evaluate” the author: “Poe does an excellent job of emplying the deception theme in Arthur Gordon Pym.” The “excellence” of the novel is a given--that’s why you’ve been instructed to write a paper on it.

5. Promote nouns and verbs rather than rely on their helpers, adjectives and adverbs. Especially avoid qualifiers like “very,” “totally,” “kind of,” and so on. Simply state what you mean. In, for example, “At the midpoint of Arthur Gordon Pym, the boat is totally destroyed, and the reader is very tense,” the qualifiers are unnecessary.

Use concrete, specific nouns. Avoid “thing,” “area,” “individual” and other dull and imprecise words. Say exactly what those things, areas, or individuals are or resemble:

6. Vary the length of sentences to avoid choppiness, as in: “Poe’s narrators are often madmen. They are deluded. These characters do not possess self-knowledge. “William Wilson” is an example. The character here is shadowed. He is shadowed by a second self.” Note too here how the several short sentences promote repetition and thus wordiness.

7. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using the phrases “I think,” “I feel,” “I believe,” and so on; but usually you don’t need them. Because it is you who writes, it must be you who thinks, feels, or believes.