38 pages • 1 hour read
Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing
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Index of Terms
Conscious Writers & Unconscious Writers
Trimble puts writers in two categories: conscious writers and unconscious writers. Conscious writers are typically advanced writers who have developed a keen respect and understanding of their reader. Thinking consciously of their reader’s needs, these authors clearly explain their argument, use concise prose, and signpost between paragraphs and sentences. In other words, they do not waste their readers’ time: “The writer who is fully aware of these implications—the conscious writer—resembles a person who companionably faces his listener and tries his level best to communicate with him, hopefully even persuade and charm him in the process, and who eventually bids him a genial, courteous farewell” (15).
In contrast, unconscious writers “haven’t yet learned to value their reader’s time” (32). They fail to state their argument, include extra words and sentences, and provide no signposting. The majority of college essay writers are unconscious writers. Writing with Style seeks to push unconscious writers on the path toward writing with respect and style.
Front Door Approach
“An essay, like a house, can be entered by the front door or the back door,” Trimble writes (31). When beginning an essay, or what Trimble calls the “opener,” the author has two options. Authors can introduce their topic and argument right up front, the “front door approach,” or they can waffle around and wait until multiple paragraph or pages into the essay to get to the point, the “back door approach” (31). Conscious writers usually use the front door approach, while unconscious, novice writers often use the back door approach. Unconscious writers use the back door approach because they do not have a strong argument; they avoid coming around to it. Trimble writes that unconscious writers “are afraid of their reader—they know he’s apt to see through their bluff” (32).
Signposting
Trimble argues that conscious writers provide their readers a map of their essay, or what is often called signposting. Signposting is the equivalent of street signs in a city. The reader, lost and unfamiliar, will depend on signage to know where they are headed. In the opener, for example, the essay writer can say in the first paragraph, “In this essay, I argue that….” This lets the reader know the author’s argument. “What reader,” writes Trimble, “isn’t grateful for such clear signposting of the argument?” (50).
The first sentence of a new paragraph is an ideal location to signpost for the reader: “Instead of viewing the opening sentence of each paragraph as a thesis sentence,” Trimble writes, he encourages the author to “view it as a bridge sentence whose primary function is to convey the reader over into the new paragraph” (54). Offer these types of bridges, or connectors, wherever possible. Signposting demonstrates to the reader that the author has respect for their needs, a key tool in the art of good writing.
Active Voice and Passive Voice
Active voice is the use of “active verbs” or “vigorous verbs” within a sentence. Students often struggle with the difference between active and passive verbs, but it helps to read examples:
Passive voice: “The shoes were eaten by the alligators.”
Active voice: “The alligators ate the shoes.”
When sentences routinely have active verbs, the author is displaying active voice. The consistent use of passive verbs results in passive voice. Trimble says that if an author wrote the majority of their sentences in passive voice, that it’s a red flag to revise. When you are “fundamentally insecure about your thesis, you’ll almost instinctively turn to the passive voice as refuge” (64). Trimble says that strong, active verbs are the engine of every sentence. Without their engine, they simply putter along and achieve very little.
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