Sentence fragments, shunned by rigid writers and grousing grammarians, often mimic speech and thus pick up the pace of your writing. Unexpected, they can command attention to strong points and comments. Here’s an example from a recent New York Times article on revitalizing Starbucks:

But revitalizing the Starbucks experience is not going to be enough. Not even close.

The full sentence would have been:

But revitalizing the Starbucks experience is not going to be enough. It will not even be close.

Stripping the subject and verb from the front and leaving the fragment drives the reader straight to the point.

Here’s another example from the ClearWriter archives:

The marriage of America and the rest of the world is just that. A marriage, for better or worse.

The more conventional version might have been:

The marriage of America and the rest of the world is just that, a marriage for better or worse.

A small difference, but a difference. Because the fragment is unconventional, it draws more attention to the point than the conventional version does. Just be sure that the passage merits the attention.

You can occasionally use a dash to separate part of a sentence and draw attention to it, just as you would with a pause in speech. Because dashes are versatile, it helps to know their three functions: linking an elaboration, setting off parenthetical material, or injecting a pause. Each use adds more emphasis than the standard comma, parentheses, or word space.

Some dashes link an elaboration, replacing a comma or a colon. Here’s an example from Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

But Saint Obama played the politics of character to an absurd extent. For 14 months, his argument for leading the world has been himself—his exquisitely globalized self.

With a comma instead of the dash, the passage would read:

But Saint Obama played the politics of character to an absurd extent. For 14 months, his argument for leading the world has been himself, his exquisitely globalized self.

The comma throws the reader too quickly into the trailing elaboration.

Elaborative dashes often attract more attention to a phrase than colons, as in this example from The Economist:

He is also interested in what some religions hold out as the ultimate reward for good behaviour—life after death.

Other dashes are parenthetical, helping readers wade through background or explanatory material in the middle of a sentence. Consider this example from The Atlantic:

The expensive cars [paparazzi] drive reflect the fact that Britney Spears—her marriages, custody battles, fights with her mom, new boyfriends, Starbucks runs, trips to the hospital—is a bigger and more lucrative story than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton or John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The dashes help readers process the details without losing the writer’s thrust. The dash-less alternative is a jumble that makes it tough for readers to get from the subject (Britney Spears) to the verb (is):

The expensive cars [paparazzi] drive reflect the fact that Britney Spears, including her marriages, custody battles, fights with her mom, new boyfriends, Starbucks runs, and trips to the hospital, is a bigger and more lucrative story than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton or John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

And still other dashes inject a pause, forcing a moment of reflection on what precedes them—before flinging readers into what follows. Here’s an example from a World Bank World Development Report:

Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty—unnecessarily.

Here the dash simply replaces a word space.

So when should you use a dash? Remember that dashes are pauses, so use them for emphasis—and sparingly. Also, avoid using them in a sentence that has a colon.

For the parts of sentences doing the same work—signaled by the conjunctions and, or, and but—repeating their grammatical structures adds balance and often picks up the cadence rather than smothers it.

Here’s an example from the New York Review of Books [and is implied, its omission adding to the rhythm of the sentence]:

White pine is too soft, he reasons, maple too sleek, oak too ordinary.

Repeating too before each adjective makes the list more memorable than anything varied structures or varied words would evoke.

Here’s another:

In my fantasy party we would support the interests of the poor and working classes, not the rich; the rights of animals and the environment would be fought for; and discrimination would be combated wherever we found it.

The reader will have trouble untangling the jumble. The original in The Economist had better structure and cadence:

In my fantasy party we would support the interests of the poor and working classes, not the rich; fight for the rights of animals and the environment; and combat discrimination wherever we found it.

The writer could have done even more to unify the rhythm:

In my fantasy party we would support the interests of the poor and working classes, not the rich; fight for the rights of animals and the environment, whether popular or not; and combat discrimination, wherever we found it.

In the original not the rich adds a phrase to the first element not shared by the others. Another solution would be to drop it:

In my fantasy party we would support the interests of the poor and working classes, fight for the rights of animals and the environment, and combat discrimination.

The choice is between a compact sentence and one that takes its time.

Given our preference for arranging series from short to long, we would recast the sentence this way:

In my fantasy party we would combat discrimination, support the interests of the poor and working classes, and fight for the rights of animals and the environment.

A third candidate for a stark attachment is a sentence with two (or more) verbs. The first two candidates, remember, were a pair of sentences with the same subject and a sentence with a who or which clause.

Consider this sentence from a piece by Jim Holt in the March 3 New Yorker, on the work of Stanislas Dehaene, a Paris-based neuroscientist exploring the brain’s wiring for math:

He pointed to the little furrow where the number sense was supposed to be situated, and observed that his had a somewhat uncommon shape.

The furrow is in a model of Dehaene’s brain. Note the two verbs, pointed and observed. Holt could have converted one of them to a stark attachment at the front of the sentence:

Pointing to the little furrow where the number sense was supposed to be situated, he observed that his had a somewhat uncommon shape.

In the middle:

He observed, pointing to the little furrow where the number sense was supposed to be situated, that his had a somewhat uncommon shape.

Or at the back:

He pointed to the little furrow where the number sense was supposed to be situated, observing that his had a somewhat uncommon shape.

Holt left the compound predicate because he used a stark attachment two sentences later:

Cradling the pastel-colored lump in his hands, a model of his mind devised by his own mental efforts, Dehaene paused for a moment.

The common form would have been:

Dehaene cradled the pastel-colored lump in his hands, a model of his mind devised by his own mental efforts, and paused for a moment.

Holt’s next sentence kept the common:

Then he smiled and said, “So, I kind of like my brain.”

This could have been:

Then, smiling, he said, “So, I kind of like my brain.”

 Or:

Then he smiled, saying, “So, I kind of like my brain.”

Four points, then, on the stark attachment. First, the part starkly attached should be the lesser of two ideas, subordinated to the greater. If the two ideas are of equal weight, use the common form. Second, the earlier the stark attachment—at the front of the sentence rather than in the middle or at the back—the more the emphasis on it. Third, watch the length, especially when separating the subject from its verb. Fourth, don’t overuse it. Holt had three sentences with two verbs in one paragraph, each a candidate for a stark attachment. He used it for just one.

Last week’s Tip talked about one type of repetition—repeating a key term. A related technique is repeating the root of a word. Consider this example from The Economist:

Far from discrediting liberalism, corruption is discredited by it.

Repeating the root signals nuanced meaning and links two ideas more strongly than would occur otherwise. Here, juxtaposing the same root in active and passive constructions heightens the author’s proposed reversal of causality.

Or take these examples from the ClearWriter archives:

Values will not bring quality-of-life results unless we cherish principles.

Without repetition, the passage is bland. Try making a tighter link:

Values will not bring quality-of-life results unless we value principles.

Using value in both noun and verb forms brings a layer of meaning that was absent before. The result is a more interesting sentence.

But as always, use this technique with care: because the reader must slow down to register and consider the link, be sure that you’re not just being cute. And the repetition should add meaning. Take this example, abstracted from my editing work:

During the discussions, participants will discuss A, B, and C.

We don’t need to be told that people will discuss things at discussions. This isn’t rhetorical repetition. It’s just bad writing. Here, I might cut During the discussions or change discuss to something more communicative—say, develop policy recommendations for A, B, and C.

Last week’s post identified pairs of sentences with the same subject as candidates for stark attachments. This week’s looks at sentences with a who or which clause—to see how to switch from the common to the professional.

Consider this sentence from the February 25 New Yorker, in Michael Specter’s piece on carbon emissions, “Big Foot.”

A former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, Sandor is known as the “father of financial futures.”

The common version would have been:

Sandor, who is a former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, is known as the “father of financial futures.”

Deleting who is and pulling the rest of the clause to the sentence’s front produces a starkly attached leading part.

Specter could also have deleted who is and left a starkly attached middle part:

Sandor, a former Berkeley economics professor and chief economist at the Chicago Board of Trade, is known as the “father of financial futures.”

And here Specter goes from the common:

Facts like these have transformed carbon dioxide into a strange but powerful new currency, which is difficult to evaluate yet impossible to ignore.

To the professional, with a starkly attached trailing part:

Facts like these have transformed carbon dioxide into a strange but powerful new currency, difficult to evaluate yet impossible to ignore.

So, delete who is or which is and see where best to starkly attach what’s left at the front, middle, or back of your sentence.

Next week’s post will look at a sentence with two or more verbs.

Repetition—far too often avoided—can be a powerful rhetorical device. It can bring order and balance to a sentence’s parts. And it can rivet a word to the reader’s frontal lobe with more impact than elegant variation ever could. This week’s Tip is on repeating a word.

Repeating a word increases its power in the sentence by forcing the reader to reconsider its meaning and that of the words it frames or modifies. Consider this example, from Henry Luce’s The American Century:

In this whole matter of War and Peace especially, we have been at various times and in various ways false to ourselves, false to each other, false to the facts of history, and false to the future.

The string of falses hammers the point and instills rhythm.

This edit counteracts the tendency of some writers to prefer synonyms over repetition. Perhaps intended to show a commend of language, this approach can confuse:

A delightful fairy tale has taken hold lately in some economic policy circles: the economy is poised for a glorious burst of sustained, 1960s-style growth without inflation. It’s a story told by a spectrum of influential figures, from conservatives to liberal luminaries. Like most good fables, this one features a horrible monster who is blocking the path to eternal happiness. That would be the chairman of the Fed, who cannot see that the economic terrain has shifted.

The three terms—tale, story, fable—force the reader to figure out whether the three are different or the same. The example is doctored slightly from the original. Sticking with fairy tale, tale, and tales, as Paul Krugman did in The New York Times Magazine, makes the passage more coherent—with the repeated terms binding the sentences:

A delightful fairy tale has taken hold lately in some economic policy circles: the economy is poised for a glorious burst of sustained, 1960s-style growth without inflation. It’s a tale told by a spectrum of influential figures, from conservatives to liberal luminaries. Like most good tales, this one features a horrible monster who is blocking the path to eternal happiness. That would be the chairman of the Fed, who cannot see that the economic terrain has shifted.

One thing that distinguishes professional writing from the common is the variety of sentence structures. Most writers cling to five or six basic types that they’ve used since high school or college. Professional writers use many more, perhaps 40 or 50. Among those are what we (at ClearWriter) call stark attachments—phrases attached as appositives or similar forms at the front of a sentence, in the middle, or at the back.

Start by looking for two sentences or independent clauses with the same subject.

Here is a starkly attached leading part from this week’s New Yorker, in Michael Specter’s piece on carbon emissions, “Big Foot.”

Compelled by economic necessity as much as by ecological awareness, many corporations now seem to compete as vigorously to display their environmental credentials as they do to sell their products.

The common version would have been:

Many corporations now seem to compete as vigorously to display their environmental credentials as they do to sell their products. They are compelled by economic necessity as much as by ecological awareness.

Note the pattern of two sentences with the same subject: Many corporations and they.

The stark attachment could also have been an inner part, after the subject:

Many corporations, compelled by economic necessity as much as by ecological awareness, now seem to compete as vigorously to display their environmental credentials as they do to sell their products.

Or it could have been a trailing part:

Many corporations now seem to compete as vigorously to display their environmental credentials as they do to sell their products, compelled by economic necessity as much as by ecological awareness.

Where you place a stark attachment usually depends on the emphasis you wish to give it. The earlier, the more emphatic.

Here’s another sentence from the same piece:

Thomas takes a utilitarian approach to the problem, attempting to convince corporations, pension funds, and other investors that the price of continuing to ignore the impact of greenhouse-gas emissions will soon greatly exceed the cost of reducing them.

Dictating the placement here is logic: the second clause elaborates on the first.

The common version would have been:

Thomas takes a utilitarian approach to the problem. He attempts to convince corporations, pension funds, and other investors that the price of continuing to ignore the impact of greenhouse-gas emissions will soon greatly exceed the cost of reducing them.

Again, note the pattern: two sentences with the same subject, always a candidate for folding part of one sentence into the front, middle, or back of the other.

Here’s another example:

I asked if they paid attention to labels. “Of course,” the man said. He looked a bit insulted.

And here is how Specter attached the second sentence to the back of the one preceding it:

I asked if they paid attention to labels. “Of course,” the man said, looking a bit insulted.

Trailing parts often start with –ing words (gerunds, participles).

Other candidates for stark attachments are sentences with two or more verbs, with a who or which clause, or with a long prepositional phrase—each to be covered in coming posts.

Two weeks ago, our Tip showed how to use semicolons to tightly link independent clauses parallel in construction. If parallel independent clauses repeat a verb, you can often drop the second verb, leaving the reader to insert it mentally. Consider this example from the New York Times Book Review:

Her novels registered these events most secretly, her letters not at all.

The flatter version might have been and her letters registered them not at all. Dropping and and registered them shortens the sentence and picks up the cadence. This omission of a word or words (ellipsis—or more specifically, zeugma, according to my colleague Nick) also works with a semicolon: Here’s an example from Alfred Jazin’s On Native Grounds:

Frank Norris became a naturalist out of his admiration for Zola; Stephen Crane, because the ferocious pessimism of naturalism suited his temperament exactly.

Note that when a semicolon connects two clauses, a comma often stands in for the omitted words.

Omitting the verb in a series of clauses can slam together subjects and objects, tightening the links. Here’s an example from an old issue of The Economist from the ClearWriter archives:

The building was cramped, working capital scarce, infrastructure fragile, and the bureaucracy tiresome.

But be sure that the verb tense and number (was, in this case) apply to each shortened clause: was scarce, was fragile, was tiresome. Some writers (incorrectly) omit a plural verb when the guiding verb is singular, as in the following slightly adjusted example:

The building was cramped, working capital scarce, infrastructure fragile, and the bureaucrats tiresome.

The singular verb was no longer fits all the clauses, upsetting the power and rhythm of the sentence, thus the switch to bureaucracy.

Like the semicolon, the colon joins in one sentence two ideas or elements that might be expressed in separate sentences, strengthening the bond. The second elements are often definitions, elaborations, or embellishments. Here’s an example from The Economist’s “The day after Super Tuesday”:

He [Barack Obama] also snatched two prizes on the coast: tiny Delaware and, more symbolically, Connecticut.

Note that what follows the colon needn’t be a complete sentence. Consider another example from The Economist’s “Speaking in tongues”:

Indonesia’s national language—a version of Malay called Bahasa Indonesia or just Indonesian—is unusual in that it is not the tongue of a dominant group: only about 3% of the population are ethnic Malays.

This usage is dubious. Some style guides (AP, for example) advise against using a dash and a colon in the same sentence.

Another function of the colon is to introduce a quotation (The minority leader delivered a harsh rebuttal:) or a list, either in text (Three areas for action:) or in bullets (see below).

But colons are often misused. Here are three don’ts:

• Don’t use a colon with for example (as in I’ve owned all types of pets, for example: cats, dogs, lizards, and ferrets.). The colon implies for example, which should be omitted.
• Don’t separate a preposition from its object (as in Over the last year I’ve traveled to: Arizona, New York, and Cambodia) or a verb from its objects (For dinner he ate: soup, salmon, spinach, spaghetti, salad, and sherbet.).
• Don’t use colons where you should use semicolons, or semicolons where you should use colons. Colons imply a direct connection between two ideas—and what follows the colon is subordinate to what precedes it (think of it as shorthand for that is). And remember that semicolons should generally join two ideas only if both would be complete sentences taken alone, sentences that should be parallel when possible. (LeTourneau University has a quick primer on the basic differences between colons and semicolons if you need a refresher.)