Evaluating Style

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Evaluating Style
Feature Menu
What Is Style? Diction Sentence
Structure Figures of Speech Review Tone Mood Theme
Practice
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What Is Style?
Every piece of writing has a stylea special way
of using words.
Formal
Casual
Straightforward
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Diction
Style starts with dictionthe words a writer
chooses.

• Diction may be formal, informal, or somewhere in
  between.

Long words with Latin roots
pusillanimous
Contractions
You tell em. Youre not a coward.
Slang
yellow-bellied
Short Anglo-Saxon words
cowardly
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Diction
Formal diction is what makes many classic novels
sound old-fashioned to modern readers.
Occasionally Rob Roy suffered disasters, and
incurred great personal danger. On one remarkable
occasion he was saved by the coolness of his
lieutenanta fine active fellow, of course, and
celebrated as a marksman. from Rob Roy by Sir
Walter Scott
A writer today might say
Rob Roy sometimes got into trouble. Once, his coolheaded, sharp-shooting lieutenant saved him from danger.
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Sentence Structure
Sentence structurethe way words are put
togetheralso affects style.
Short, simple sentences Long, complex sentences
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. from Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw In addition to this forest of family trees, Mr. Sillerton Jackson carried between his narrow hollow temples, and under his soft thatch of silver hair, a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that had smouldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within the last fifty years. from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
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Figures of Speech
Style also depends on whether a writer uses
plain, literal language or figures of speech.
What is the effect of the underlined figure of
speech?
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Review
Quick Check
Describe the style of this passage. How does
diction help create the style?
Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley
Temple, she took me to a beauty training school
in the Mission district and put me in the hands
of a student who could barely hold the scissors
without shaking. Instead of getting big fat
curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly
black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the
bathroom and tried to wet down my hair. from
Two Kinds by Amy Tan
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Review
Quick Check
Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley
Temple, she took me to a beauty training school
in the Mission district and put me in the hands
of a student who could barely hold the scissors
without shaking. Instead of getting big fat
curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly
black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the
bathroom and tried to wet down my hair. from
Two Kinds by Amy Tan
Describe the style of this passage. How does
diction help create the style?
Informal and humorous the writer uses casual,
comical-sounding words.
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Tone
Tone is the attitude a writer takes toward a
subject, a character, or the audience. A writers
diction helps create tone.

• The tone of a piece of writing may be

admiring
mocking
affectionate
serious
vengeful
bitter
comic
soothing
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Tone
Quick Check
What is the tone of this passage? What words help
create the tone?
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely,
you cannot imagine it and Sadie was ten, and
just like her mother, just a darling slender
little copy of her, with auburn tails down her
back, and short frocks and the baby was a year
old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and
never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and
hugging me, and laughing out its innocent
happiness. . . . from A Dogs Tale by Mark
Twain
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Tone
Quick Check
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely,
you cannot imagine it and Sadie was ten, and
just like her mother, just a darling slender
little copy of her, with auburn tails down her
back, and short frocks and the baby was a year
old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and
never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and
hugging me, and laughing out its innocent
happiness. . . . from A Dogs Tale by Mark
Twain
What is the tone of this passage? What words help
create the tone?
admiring, affectionate
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Mood
Mood is the atmosphere a writer creates through
diction and figurative language.

• Many writers become famous for the moods or
  atmospheres they create.

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Theme
Style has a powerful influence on theme, the
central idea about life that a story expresses.
Light and conversational style
Optimistic theme Together, a family can cope
with difficult times more easily than an
individual can.
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Practice
Here is a simple sentence
The boy walked through the woods.
1. Rewrite the sentence using figurative language
to create an atmosphere of gloom.
2. Rewrite the sentence using an ornate, or
flowery, style.
3. Rewrite the sentence to indicate a tone of
affection for the boy.
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The End