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LANGUAGE AND STYLE
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Syntactical Choices for Effect

Enduring Understanding (STL-1)
The rhetorical situation informs the strategic stylistic choices that writers make.

The way a writer communicates a message to an audience can affect how well the
audience receives the message. So, writers strategically craft sentences, repeat words
or phrases, pose questions, and contrast or connect sentences in a way that empha-
KEY POINT sizes ideas or asks their audience to reflect. These are deliberate, strategic choices

Writers craft that writers make in an attempt to achieve their purpose with a specific audience.
sentences in ways
that not only engage
their readers but Syntax Is Part of the Writer’s Craft
also convey their
message. Consider the following sentences from Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis
(1776). His purpose was to inspire his American audience to fight for their
independence from England, even if they had to struggle through hardship and
setbacks. He introduces his argument by writing:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their coun-
try; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman.
These engaging lines have a rhythm, balance, and power that reinforce his
message to his audience. He achieves this effect, in part, through syntax: the
specific arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences.
Writers make syntactical choices deliberately, with their audience in mind.
Have you ever heard a speech in which the speaker asked a question and then
paused? The speaker wasn’t waiting for a verbal answer from the audience. Rather,
he or she paused so that members of the audience could formulate their own
answers. Some speakers or writers repeat the same phrase or sentence multiple
times. Through this repetition, they intend for their audience to remember that
point. And some writers use the same grammatical structure — for example, two
simple sentences back-to-back. All of these syntactical choices are intended for
some effect, such as emphasis, reflection, or contrast.

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