Style: An Introduction
The rhetorical strategies that we collectively call style are some of the most powerful communicative tools we possess. Classical rhetoric breaks these tools into 4 categories, called "graces." But even if you just want to your boss to fund your latest brilliant project, understanding these graces, and the relationship between them, can help improve your chances.
Grace |
What it Means |
Correctness |
Correctness deals with grammar, syntax, and mechanical tools such as punctuation, abbreviations, spelling, and usage. To learn about correctness, see Common Grammatical Stumbling Blocks, later in this module. |
Clarity |
Clarity refers to how easily readers can understand your ideas. A document's clarity depends on diction (word choice), coherence (the logical relationship between ideas), and cohesion (the logical relationships between individual sentences). In other words, you need to use words your audience understands, present a logical argument, and make sure the transitions between your sentences reflect that logic. |
Ornament |
Typically, we think of ornaments as things that are attractive, but not particularly essential or important. In stylistic terms, though, ornament deals with sentence patterns like parallelism and repetition that help readers see the relationships between ideas more clearly. Ornament allows us to use syntax to reinforce the ideas we're trying to express. |
Decorum |
Decorum coordinates all these tools. At its heart, decorum ensures that the language and tone (your attitude towards the audience and subject matter) is appropriate for the rhetorical situation and occasion. Your language use must not only be accurate; it must have the proper register (level of formality or casualness) and provenance (characteristics of a particular professional, sociological, or geographical group). In other words, if an email to your professor is correct, clear, and parallel in structure, but your tone and language are more appropriate to your best friend, your communication still fails. |
Importantly, these "graces," or levels, build on each other - correctness is necessary for clarity, clarity for ornament, and ornament for decorum. In other words, your tone may be superb, but if your sentences are grammatically incoherent, the communication still fails.
Consider the following sentence:
Pursuant to the directive received by this employee, the following represents a carefully considered response to the most recently implemented initiatives enacted by the departmental management, which are herewith considered to be less than optimally effective in achieving the desired ends within the scope of the mission defined for the current
Grammatically correct, yes, but completely unclear.
How about this one?
You wanted feedback; here it is. Your new policy stinks.
Grammatically correct, and quite clear, but likely to get you fired.
By the time you finish this module, you should be able to find a middle ground in terms of style.