Expository writing: A short guide

Ken Cheng

ãCopyright 2020

Photo from Pixabay, author unknown:

https://pixabay.com/photos/fountain-pen-note-notebook-
page-1851096/
 Expository writing

Contents

Chapter 1 Classic style 3

Classic style: a window to the truth 4
Paragraphs 6
Sentences 8
Other issues 14
References 16

Chapter 2 Nitty-gritties: Fixing common

problems in students’ writing 17
Run-on sentences 17
Sentence fragments 20
Subject–verb (mis)agreement 21
Accompanying words for nouns 22
Pronouns, deictic words, the words that and which 28
Punctuation 33
Commonly misused words 43
Final words 46
References 47

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Chapter 1 Classic style

Writing is a strange business. It is like talking, but no audience
is present except for those who may flash upon that inward eye,
to borrow a poetic turn from William Wordsworth. No sounds,
or gestures, in the case of sign languages, emanate except for
what may chime upon that inward ear. Talking, most often,
flows naturally. Writing can be a struggle for students, with the
blank space of the electronic page sometimes foisting an
insurmountable barrier to the flow of words. At other times,
“flow” hardly describes the writing process, with the jumble of
keyboard strokes stumbling and staggering incoherently on the
page. To switch metaphors again, this little guide aims to set
university students of all writing calibres on a basic course of
smooth sailing in writing, to navigate around common
obstacles, and to ease the angst in writing. For all students,
writing is a most—perhaps the most—important generic skill to
develop in university.
We begin with overarching style in this chapter, followed
by a short guide on two units of writing at different levels, the
paragraph and the sentence. Chapter 2 delves into nitty gritties.
Common problems in student writing will parade on the pages,
flagged with warnings and exercises for avoiding and fixing
them. The pageant of mishaps features run-on sentences, their
opposite, sentence fragments, subject–verb (mis)agreement,
accompanying words for nouns (or their lack), ambiguities in
pronouns and other deictic words, and errors in punctuation.
Some students might consider the last issue to be small fry, but
errors in punctuation do tarnish style, and sometimes mess up
the intended meaning. Exercises are sprinkled in the book.
Improving writing is like improving tennis playing. Both these
activities will not improve much from spectating, watching a

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tennis superstar play or reading writing guide after writing

guide. To improve in tennis, the player must get out on the court
and hit tennis balls. To improve writing, the writer must write.
Classic style: a window to the truth
Our journey must begin with overarching style, an aesthetic
philosophy for writing. Style in this sense does not concern
nitty-gritty rules such as how to format references or what
sections and subsections to include in a work, the stuff of
instructions for authors on journal web pages or sometimes
instructions for assignments. Rather, style concerns broad
principles, fundamental aesthetic stances, and, as already said,
overarching philosophy. A variety of styles have evolved in the
history of writing. For academic writing in university, the style
that I recommend, along with other scholars (Brown 2016;
Pinker 2014; Thomas and Turner 1994), is classic style. This is
not to say that classic style is the best style, tout court. As in
styles of painting over the ages, one cannot legitimately say that
one style is best overall. Of all writing styles, however, classic
style suits university academic writing best.
The basic stance of classic style is the presentation of a
window to the truth. Writing presents a window to the truth, a
view that the writer has come to after her travails of research.
(Following Pinker’s (2014) conventions, the writer takes the
female gender in this chapter and the reader takes the male
gender, while in the next chapter, gender roles are reversed. My
apologies to those who identify themselves as some other
gender.) The writer and the reader come to the party with
different backgrounds. In expository writing, the writer has read
literature on a topic or sometimes conducted as yet unreported
research, on the basis of which she has formulated her views.
The reader is not privy to that background. The writer’s job is to

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convey her intellectual journey to him, culminating in the views

of the truth that she has arrived at. As much of the journey
should be related as is needed to make those views
comprehensible.
In related tenets, classic style takes the reader to be
competent and language to be adequate, sufficient for
describing anything, no matter how complex or abstract, from
principles of history to quantum physics to aesthetic philosophy
to cognitive science. If the writer leads the reader on the path by
which she, the writer, has come to her views, the reader will
understand as well, and writer and reader end up sharing a
chunk of the universe, like two friends watching a sunset
together.
This view of truth is an aesthetic stance in classic style,
not a philosophical claim about truth. Whether objective truth is
out there and whether we can arrive at it are other questions,
claims of which are difficult to defend. The writer does not need
to broach that difficult turf, unless, of course, she is writing
about the philosophy of truth. For the sake of presentation,
classic style takes the stance of presenting the truth. Like a well-
trained umpire, the writer, well trained after her scholarly
labours, calls it as she sees it.
The call-it-as-you-see it stance implies direct writing
without fussing, pussyfooting about, and humming and hawing
over matters, a theme that will reappear in discussions about
paragraphs and sentences. This directness contrasts with the
amount of dress-up and CYA (Pinker, 2014, used this
abbreviation for “cover your anatomy”) language that adorns
some styles of academese, bureaucratese, and legalese. It just
might be the case that, well, in the minds of a good number of

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scholars on writing, “To the point” makes a useful catchphrase

for budding classic stylists to keep in mind.
Yet another stance, going metaphor, or idiom (Brown
2016) of classic style is conversation. In the presentation, the
writer talks to her reader to make him share a view, perhaps
more elegantly and eloquently than in everyday conversation.
Flow, naturalness, and spontaneity all make up the metre and
rhythms of classic style.
For the classic writer, “easy to read” could make another
overarching stylistic mantra. After all, the going metaphors are
easy activities for neurotypical people: talking and seeing
(although cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, and roboticists
tell us that these natural competencies are incredibly complex
and difficult from the perspective of engineering an artifiically
intelligent system to master them). In what is coming, we will
take the metaphor of going on a journey to see views.
Paragraphs
A catchphrase that the university student can follow in every
writing assignment is: one paragraph, one theme. A paragraph
introduces one topic and reveals something about it to the
reader. In our metaphor of journeys and views, a paragraph
takes the reader on a logical journey to view one scene. The
reader should know early in the paragraph where he is being
taken to. Staking out the itinerary within two sentences,
although often in the first sentence, is a good rule to follow.
Two sentences of theme introduction might sometimes work
better because the first sentence might be needed to link the
current journey to the one in the preceding paragraph. The
development of the paragraph then travels the necessary chain
of reasoning to get to the view.

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The dictum of one paragraph, one theme means that the

writer should not simply introduce a theme and then leave it. A
one-sentence, or sometimes two-sentence paragraph as well,
may leave the reader scratching his head and wondering why
this theme is introduced. It is akin to announcing that the tour is
going to visit the pyramids, and then the tour bus simply staying
put. This rule has its exceptions because a one-sentence
paragraph can be used to highlight a dramatic point by letting it
stand by itself. Students’ university assignments, however,
usually furnish no occasions for such dramatic proclamations.
In the opposite direction, the rule of one paragraph, one
theme means that a journey should not contain side trips or
worse yet, like the mighty moose in the Canadian song Land of
the Silver Birch, wander at will. A wandering paragraph is hard
for readers to keep track of, leaving him wondering: where the
devil are we going? If a different but perhaps related point cries
out to be expressed, the writer should plan to make it the theme
of its own journey (paragraph).
Within a paragraph, sentences need to progress in a
connected chain to make a smooth journey for the reader,
flowing in what Pinker (2014) called an arc of coherence. Not
only must sentences on their own make sense (next section), but
they must link with one another in a logical fashion. The classic
writer makes it easy for her reader to follow along. I have taken
what was a well written paragraph from an actual student paper
and doctored it to show what tortuous flow is like with
sentences that are perfectly good on their own:
Finally, this research spans beyond just
depression. Such models are crucial for
understanding what can go wrong in the mind.
Montgomery (2018) proposes that in mismatched

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environments, painful emotions activate reward

pathways in the brain. This powerful cycle of
addiction and imbalance, he warns, is responsible for
a host of mental disorders. In his model of
psychological dysfunction, Montgomery (2018)
links evolutionary psychiatry to neuroscience, and
this triggers the release of dopamine and endorphins,
acting like an emotional addiction and wrenching the
individual’s internal state out of balance. In the fight
for mental wellbeing, it remains to be seen where
this insight can take us.
The journey starts and ends in a sensible fashion, as I have not
doctored those parts. But in between, the journey is
bewildering. While it looks like one theme about something to
do with addiction, emotions, and mismatch, the reader would
probably have a hard time making out the scene. Some pointers,
using words such as “this” or “such”, have been wrenched from
their anchors, so that it is unclear what they are pointing to. In
reading “this powerful cycle”, the reader could legitimately
wonder what cycle we are talking about. In “this triggers the
release”, the reader again cannot pinpoint what “this” is
referring to, as key ideas in the preceding phrase, link,
evolutionary psychiatry, and neuroscience, do not make sense
when it comes to releasing dopamine. The enterprising reader
might try to remedy the paragraph, breaking up clauses and
joining other clauses if that works better.
Sentences
In parallel to the paragraph, a dictum may be applied to the
sentence as well: one sentence, one idea. A sentence moves one
station along a journey that is the paragraph. Having multiple
ideas mixed in a single sentence usually confuses the reader,

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taxing his cognitive resources to make out what is written. The

writer should make the journey as smooth and easy as possible
for her readers.
To get a taste of such mixed-up sentences, try to parse the
following doctored examples inspired by uninspiring student
writing:
The invention of prosthetic devices controlled by the
brain which has had a history in the 21st century and
has increased in technological sophistication,
certainly assists disabled people with mobility
although the technology needs to mature with a
major fault that the bulk and cost of the machines
make it hard to deliver in needed numbers to those
needing them, in order to be useful at a meaningful
scale.
New and genetically engineered foods, by which I
include all domestic plants and animals as well
because we have shaped their genetic paths by
selective breeding, and plants as well have been
around for centuries however with a fast changing
world full of problems such as climate change and
pollution, problems with anthropogenic
contributions whose ethical dimensions are of great
concern, we need new techniques to develop more
sustainable resources for the world and its
inhabitants.
A number of grammatical errors in these head-spinners
contribute to their confusing character in addition to multiple
ideas pulling the reader in different directions. The first sentence
speaks of prosthetic technology assisting people, an increase in
the sophistication of such technology, and faults in the

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technology, all mixed up. Such detouring sentences lack flow. In

our travel metaphor, they take side trips on rickety carts and risk
leaving readers behind who have fallen off the wagon of
comprehension.

Exercise
List the ideas contained in those two sentences above.
Then reformulate each sentence into multiple sentences
making up a part of a paragraph.

A part of what makes the multi-idea sentences difficult

and unstylish is that they are hard to process. Sentences that are
too long or convoluted are to be shunned by the classic writer
even when they stick to a single idea, just because they are too
difficult to process. The classic writer takes a conversational
stance, considers the cognitive limitations of readers, and makes
sentences that are easy to take in. An example featured in my
earlier book on writing (Cheng 2020) serves well as illustration:
Because intersexual selection relies on female
choice, and not on male choice, this because females
usually have much more at stake in choosing a
sexual partner since it costs them much more to
produce an egg, and sometimes to take care of the
fertilised egg after copulation as well, compared
with males, female animals have driven the course
of the evolution of animals.
The ideas in this convoluted concoction are all good and
interesting to tell, but the classic writer would break such a
sentence into smaller, friendlier chunks.

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A common comment levelled at student writing is that a

chunk of writing is awkward. No general remedy for this issue
can be offered in the space of a paragraph as sentences may be
awkward in many different ways. The dictum of one sentence,
one idea should help to reduce awkwardness. Those who think
that they often produce awkward writing might also keep
sentences short; it is typically long sentences that turn awkward.
Yet another bit of advice is to heed the basic grammatical
structure of a sentence. Basically, a sentence contains a subject,
some entity that the sentence says something about, and a
predicate, what is said about the subject. Understanding this
structure should let the writer write predicates that are
appropriate for the subject of the sentence, rather than
something else that is typically related to the subject but not
about the subject itself. An example inspired from actual
student writing illustrates.
Attraction to food and to recreational drugs share
similarities; both stimulate the dopamine reward
system.
The sentence is grammatical but comes across awkward because
it is food and drugs that stimulate the dopamine reward system,
not the attraction to them.
A sentence should tell a story. And as in a story, the most
dramatic part usually sits best at the end. Compare the
following two sentences:
1. Alexander Fleming discovered the first
antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928.
2. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the
first antibiotic, penicillin.

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Which packs a better sense of drama? Appearing as isolated

sentences without context, the discovery of penicillin is more
dramatic than the date. But context might change matters. Dates
could become the focus of drama if, for example, the writer
tracks the invention of a plethora of antibiotics, or the history of
bacterial resistance to antiobiotics. Thus:
Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in
1928. The first sign of bacterial resistance to
penicillin was discovered in 1940.
What emerges as most dramatic depends on the story that the
writer has to tell.
On a related topic of drama in writing, the classic writer
usually opts for strong words, especially verbs. Training in
formal writing might lead some students to use bland
formulations, but, like a good conversation partner, the classic
writer livens up her writing. Use of phrases such as there is,
occurs, or involves dulls the palate, and the classic writer can
usually offer tastier fare. As examples:
There are two forms of sexual selection, intrasexual
selection and intersexual selection.
can be changed to:
Sexual selection comes in two forms: intrasexual
selection and intersexual selection.
or even more dramatically:
Sexual selection forks into two branches, intrasexual
selection and intersexual selection.
The writer cannot always avoid the use of verbs such as be or
occur but should look to minimise their use.

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Particularly dull language can be fashioned by combining

bland verbs with nominalisations. This latter bunch arises from
turning verbs into nouns, for example, initialisation,
crystalisation, formalisation, and other words ending in “ation”.
Here is one example in a sentence:
Calcium ions are involved in the initialisation of the
release of neurotransmitters from the axonal bulb.
The sentence can be rescued by converting the nominalised
word, initialisation, into a verb:
Calcium ions initialise the release of
neurotransmitters from the axonal bulb.
To be even more dramatic, the writer could replace initialise
with more colourful verbs such as drive, kickstart, or spark,
verbs that convey different nuances.
Rewrite the following sentences.
1. There are two rules in the tit-for-tat strategy, the first
of which is to play cooperate on the first move and
the second of which is to play whatever the opponent
played in the previous round.
2. There are many ways described in the paper about
changing human behaviour, but a conclusion is that
there are many cases in which people behave based
on unconscious, emotional choices, not thinking
about sustainable options.

The call for putting drama at the ends of sentences does

not mean that the beginnings of sentences should be packed with
uninformative words, which I often unkindly call fluff. Such

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uninformative words might sound formal but usually do not add

useful information or elegance to writing. This kind of supposed
loftiness or seriousness might begin something like:
For decades now, scientists from a variety of
disciplines have conducted research on the important
topic of …
A lot of words have had to be parsed by the reader, and after all
that cognitive expenditure, he still does not know what the
sentence is about. The classic writer strikes a conversational
tone, the conversation being a key aesthetic stance of classic
style. She gets to the point. The legendary boxer Muhammad Ali
is credited with the catchphrase “float like a butterfly, sting like
a bee”. The classic writer discards the first command, and makes
her writing sting like a bee. Perhaps she might adopt novelist
Philip Pullman’s version of this pair of commands: read like a
butterfly, write like a bee.

Rewrite the following sentences.

1. After many years of research in educational practices
and cognitive psychology, the interest in linking the
all-important topic of stress in testing situations to
the study habits of students has finally been realised
recently by a team of researchers (Smith et al. 2016).
2. More and more these days in the study of
neuroscience in trying to understand various
complex functions of the intricate organ of the brain,
a host of new neuroscientific techniques are being
put to use.

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Other issues
The classic writer presents matters as she sees them. When she,
based on her efforts and research, sees a point in the literature
that she disagrees with, she calls it out, but does so
professionally. The conventions of academic writing and the
stance of classic style agree on keeping writing professional,
discarding personal attacks, sarcasm, and tones that could be
called ranting. If an argument in the literature does not seem to
follow logically from accepted principles, the classic writer does
not call that argument or its authors “ludicrous” or “stupid”—it
being all too easy to trip up on a chain of reasoning in complex
academic issues. Rather, she points out how the reasoning fails,
and in the direct fashion of classic style, leaves it at that, without
packing in invectives that do not inform the reader any more
about the point at issue. The classic writer could take this
professional stance as part and parcel of the aesthetic stance of
direct, to-the-point writing.
In conclusion, classic style is what I recommend for all
academic writing. This style takes the reader on a direct,
conversational journey to views of the truth as the writer sees it.
The classic writer takes much effort to make the journey as
smooth and easy as possible for her readers, so that none of
them fall off the wagon en route. In the dictum of one paragraph,
one theme, she presents one scene in each paragraph, logically
structured in an arc of coherence. The style works well for
essays, lab reports, commentaries, opinion pieces, and even
talks, the stuff of assignments in university.

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References
Brown, Jill. The writing style that produces clear, elegant
prose: classic style. http://wordsbyjillbrown.com/what-is-
classic-style/ 2016 [cited January 2020].
Cheng, Ken. 2019, 2020. Expository scientific writing: A short
guide. Online:
https://http://www.mq.edu.au/research/kenchenglab.
Pinker, Steven. 2014. The sense of style. London: Penguin
Random House.
Thomas, Francis-Noël, and Mark Turner. 1994. Clear and
simple as the truth: Writing classic prose. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.

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Chapter 2 Nitty-gritties: Fixing common

problems in students’ writing
While Chapter 1 sketched broad aesthetic principles and
outlined key structural elements of paragraphs and sentences,
Chapter 2 focuses on common problems that I have encountered
in students’ writing and from writing by professional scientists
whose command of English is not the best. The selection
features grammatical foibles from run-on sentences to sentence
fragments, subject–verb agreement, and accompanying words
for nouns, the latter a problem for many for whom English is not
the first or dominant language. Other problems include the use
of pronouns and any word that points to some aforementioned
entity, and punctuation. A few commonly misused words round
out the chapter.
Run-on sentences
A sentence runs on when what should form two or more
sentences are jammed together without a proper break. Breaks
that separate sentences or sentential clauses of sentences include
the fullstop (.), the semi-colon (;), and words that serve to join
sentential clauses, such as and, or, although, but not however.
Run-on sentences are formally ungrammatical, with
ungrammatical writing indicated in this chapter by asterisks
before and after the ungrammatical portion. These grammatical
foibles are writing mistakes and make it hard for readers to
make out what is said. Here are some concocted examples
inspired by actual student writing, with an arrow indicating
where a run-on starts.
*In evolution, when a predator gets better, so does
its prey, äthis is called an evolutionary arms race.*

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*Humans gamble today because their ancestors took

risks in hunting behaviour, äX (2014) states that
dopamine functions as a reward signal in gambling.*
*Focusing on killing pests outright with poisons has
detrimental effects, äit may be better to use benign
means to control their numbers.*
These run-on sentences can be easily remedied with a small
amount of editing, and readers might want to take on the
exercise of fixing these examples.
One particularly common variety of ugly ungrammatical
run-on sentences misuses the word however, using it to join
sentential clauses. Words such as and, or, although, and but may
be rightfully used to join sentential clauses, but not the word
however. The following concocted lot featuring however are all
ungrammatical.
*Genetically engineered foods have been around for
centuries ähowever in a fast-changing world we
need new techniques and sustainable resources.*
*Many people may enjoy the feeling from alcohol or
drugs, ähowever when they sober up, they face
reality again.*
Run-on sentences with the word however may be fixed in
two different ways. One way is to break the run-on into two
sentences separated by a fullstop; after all, a run-on sentence
consists of what are two sentences unwisely jammed together
into one sentence. This might produce something like:
Many people enjoy the feeling from alcohol or
drugs. When they sober up, however, they face
reality again.

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This rendition has changed the position of the word however.

For stylistic reasons, however usually has the most dramatic
effect in the middle of a sentence. This tack-on word adds some
emphasis or drama, a mini-drumroll. It is thus best placed just
before the drama, which in the example in question comes with
people facing reality again. The second way to fix a run-on
sentence containing however is to use a different and proper
connecting word. This might result in something like:
Genetically engineered foods have been around for
centuries, but in a fast-changing world we need new
techniques and sustainable resources.
The sentence is now at least grammatical although the quality of
what it expresses is another matter.

Rewrite the following sentences.

1. Traumatic events in life cause stress responses,

sometimes this is a fight-or-flight response, if the
response is unsuccessful, a human adaptation is post-
traumatic stress disorder.

2. Strategies such as changing environmental cues and

economic incentives are important in reducing the
consumption of products with high carbon footprints,
environmental cues include presenting sustainable
options prominently to attract consumers’ attention,
for example, when green energy was set as the
default, its usage increased.

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Sentence fragments
A common form of ungrammatical writing that is in a sense
opposite to the run-on sentence is a sentence fragment. These
foibles do not contain enough components to make a
grammatical sentence. Here are some concocted cases based on
student writing.
*Essentially limiting social interactions and thus the
risk of spreading infection.*
*Such as; species ability to adapt to environments
and available resources.*
These fragments are missing a head, some noun phrase that
forms the subject of a sentence. Fragments feel like after-
thoughts tacked on carelessly in writing. Two major approaches
to fixing sentence fragments are to 1) tack them onto the
sentence before as a phrase, or 2) add a noun phrase as a subject.
Taking tack 1) might turn out something like:
Feeling sick usually also makes people feel lethargic
and disinclined to socialise, essentially limiting
social interactions and the risk of spreading
infection.
Taking tack 2) might produce something like:
Animals’ capacity for coping with human-induced
changes depends on a number of factors, such as
species’ ability to adapt to environments and
available resources.
Again, these sentences are now at least grammatical, but
their quality is another matter.

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Rewrite the following sentences.

1. Excessive intake of energy predisposes the body
towards obesity. Resulting in a harmful metabolic
cycle. With increasing levels of circulating fatty
acids.
2. Thus, economic incentives can be targeted to lower
the consumption of products. Such as increasing the
price of meat. Or taxes implemented to limit
consumption of products harmful to the environment.

Subject–verb (mis)agreement
A surprisingly common problem in grammar that is easily
remediable is subject–verb (mis)agreement. A sentence typically
consists of an entity that the sentence is about, the subject, and
some statement about the subject, the predicate. The verb in the
predicate must agree with the noun phrase in the subject. Thus:
Jill runs for exercise.
Jill *run* for exercise.
Jill and Jack run together for exercise.
Almost no student makes subject–verb misagreements with such
simple cases, but academic writing is sometimes adorned with
complex noun phrases with the main noun in the noun phrase a
good distance from the verb in the predicate. Those are
situations in which subject–verb misagreements pop up. Here
are some examples inspired by actual student writing:
Depression caused by traumatic events often *lead*
to post-traumatic stress disorder.

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An increase in pro-inflammatroy cytokines often

*result* in altered moods, loss of appetite, and
fatigue.
In both cases, the noun phrase is singular, the head being
depression in one and an increase in the other, but nearby plural
nouns, events and cytokines, may inveigle the writer into treating
the noun phrase, incorrectly, as plural. Mindfiul attention to the
structure of a noun phrase helps writers to avoid such
misagreeing foibles.
Accompanying words for nouns
Nouns and noun phrases come with another requirement that is
often flubbed by writers, that of accompanying words for nouns.
I have found this especially common in writers whose dominant
language is not English. In English, nouns often need some
accompanying word. In fact, it is best to think of nouns as
always needing accompaniment, with sometimes the guardian
being invisible like a spy. Rules for accompaniment depend on
whether a noun is proper or not, and whether it is countable or
not, so that we must first take these grammatical distinctions in
stride.
Proper nouns are names of particular entities, entities both
abstract and concrete; they are written in capitals. Thus, Fifi
might name a canine mammal living in someone’s house, Justin
Trudeau denotes the prime minister of a certain country, and
University of Toronto denotes an institution of higher learning.
The names of most entities do not have accompanying words
with them. It is ungrammatical to write: Susan went to the park
with *a* Fifi or The press met *the* Justin Trudeau.
Nevertheless, a bewildering bunch of proper names take on the
definite article the. Names in plural forms, names with

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prepositional forms, most typically in the form of X, and

geographical terms toss in complications.
When the name is in plural, even if the entity in question
can be conceived as one entity, the typiclly accompanies the
name. We write the United Nations, the Galápagos Islands, and
the Toronto Raptors (a basketball team), but Manchester United
(which is in singular form).
Proper names with prepositional phrases have the, a
definite article, as accompaniment. Thus, we write the Bank of
America, but Citibank. To add some twists, if the word the
appears in the name of an entity with a prepositional phrase,
then the definite article is also capitalised. For example:
They published their article in the Journal of
Experimental Biology, which is published by The
Company of Biologists.
To add nuance to these rules, in a form of exceptions to
exceptions, names of created works do not take on any articles,
unless an article is part of the name (such as The Rite of Spring).
No accompanying words are used even when plural forms and
prepositional phrases appear in the title of some created work.
Thus, we write:
Robert Schumann composed Scenes of Childhood, a
suite for piano.
Hedy West wrote the song 500 Miles.
Not:
Hedy West wrote the song *the* 500 Miles.
Oftentimes, such titles are in quotation marks or italicised to
indicate that they refer to titles of created pieces.

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An array other capitalised names of abstract entities also

take on the as accompaniment. Examples include the United
States Senate, the Federal Reserve System, the Kremlin, and the
People’s Liberation Army. It is hard to discern a rule concerning
such organisations; it seems to depend on the individual cases.
Thus, the web site of the Food and Agricultural Organization of
the United Nations (http://www.fao.org/about/en) writes: The
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is a specialized
agency of the United Nations … In its acronym form, FAO,
however, the name parades without accompaniment. The web
site also writes that FAO works in over 130 countries
worldwide. The organisation Gapminder, on the other hand, is
simply called Gapminder. When the writer is in doubt about the
proper way to formulate an organisation’s name, he should
check an organisation’s web site.
The realm of geography boggles the mind because
grammatical rules depend on seemingly arbitrary distinctions
between land and water and between different scales of
geographic space. Cities, towns, states, provinces, and countries
generally do not have accompanying words, unless the plural
form or a prepositional phrase, or both, comes with a name, such
as the Pyrenees or the People’s Republic of China. These latter
forms, as we have already seen, require the word the to
accompany them. For cities, towns, states, and provinces, it is
ungrammatical to write sentences such as: she studied in *the*
Boston, whose correct form is she studied in Boston.
Nevertheless, terms for land regions often take on the definite
article the, for example, she studied in the Northeast of the
United States of America, but she studied in New England.
Rivers, seas, and oceans take on the, but not lakes as singular
entities—see what I mean by mind-boggling. Hence, we write
Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes. Note that Lake Ontario

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Expository writing

does not take the as accompaniment. And we write the

Mississippi River, as in Let me go away from the Mississippi,
from the song Old Man River. If the song were to run Let me go
away from Mississippi, that would mean leaving the state of
Mississippi rather than getting away from the river.
But wait, more nuances are afoot with proper names.
Some proper names denote a whole class of entities even though
they are capitalised. Then they are more like the rest of the
garden-variety English nouns. Thus, we write: Boeing halted
production of their 737 MAX because two of those planes had
crashed. The word their serves the accompanying role in the
sentence; the writer could also use the in place of their. The term
737 MAX denotes a category consisting of a bunch of planes
made by Boeing. (By the way, it is Boeing, but the Boeing
Company.) It is ungrammatical to write Boeing stopped
production of *737 MAX* or she took *Macbook Pro* on board
the flight in *Airbus 380*.
More distinctions must be made when it comes to the rest
of the English nouns. These come in categories of countable and
uncountable, the latter group also called mass nouns. Countable
nouns, the more common variety, are treated as discrete entities,
so that numerical tags may be added to them; examples include
dog, tree, hypothesis, explanation, thus encompassing abstract
as well as concrete entities. The writer may write one dog or
three dogs. The last example shows that countable nouns have
plural forms. Mass or uncountable nouns are treated as a single
undifferentiated entity. They have no plural forms and numerical
tags may not be added to them. The writer may not write *two
waters* or *one coffee*. This mass/countable distinction is a
grammatical distinction and does not always depend on whether
the entity in question can be counted. The word rice is

25
 Expository writing

grammatically uncountable, even though readers can readily

count grains of rice. The phrase grains of rice shows how a mass
noun can be turned into a countable noun phrase, by packaging
the mass noun into some ‘container word’, with additional
examples such as bags of rice or bowls of rice.
Rules of accompaniment for nouns depend on yet another
grammatical distinction, between definite and indefinite nouns.
This distinction maps onto a key semantic distinction and
keeping this matter cogent is critical to clear writing. An
indefinite noun conveys an entity whose identity is uncertain to
readers; the noun or noun phrase proclaims the kind of entity it
is. For example, the phrase a woman of distinction describes one
member of a category, women of distinction. The word woman
serves as an indefinite noun in the phrase. The reader does not
know which woman she is (or for that matter how the woman is
of distinction). On the other hand, the phrase the woman of
distinction describes a woman whose identity the reader already
knows about; this knowledge must have been conveyed in
earlier sentences if the writer is clear in his writing. Any noun
may serve as definite or indefinite; here the grammatical
distinction points to different semantic roles, whether the reader
can identify the particular entity that a noun is referring to.
Our distinctions give us six categories, each with its own
crew of accompanying words (Table 2.1). Of the six categories,
indefinite countable plural nouns and indefinite uncountable
nouns (always in the singular) may be left without
accompaniment, shown as square brackets in Table 2.1. The rest
of the noun categories must have accompaniment, with common
accompanying words shown in Table 2.1.

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Expository writing

Table 2.1. Some common accompaniment that may be used with

different kinds of nouns. Blanks are indicated by square
brackets. Reproduced from Cheng (2020).
noun how definite or suitable
countability many not accompaniment
countable singular definite the, this, that
countable singular indefinite a, one
countable plural definite the, these, those
countable plural indefinite some, [ ]
uncountable singular definite the, that, this
uncountable singular indefinite some, [ ]

What is in Table 2.1 does come with a few caveats by way

of exceptions. Sometimes, the writer uses the word the to point
to some generic member of the kind in question. In fact, the
previous sentence exemplifies such a case. In this book, the
writer and the reader do not refer to any particular writer and
reader, but stand for a generic writer and generic reader among
the intended audience of this book. It is like saying “the species
of writers”. In neuroscience, neuroanatomical entities are
sometimes written without the definite article, as if such entities
are treated as proper names. One might see sentences such as:
The signal travels from entorhinal cortex to
hippocampus.

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 Expository writing

Pronouns, deictic words, the words that and which

Definite noun phrases point to something that the reader should
already know about; she must be able to figure it out from
previous sentences in the writing. Pronouns and other ‘pointing’
words, called deictic words, also point to some antecedent that
the reader should both know about and be able to figure out.
Such deictic words include some of the accompanying words for
definite nouns that we have encountered: this, that, these, those.
These words, along with pronouns such as he, she, it, and they,
replace definite noun phrases as shorthand. If the writer is
writing about the political system in the province of British
Columbia in several sentences, it becomes tedious for readers to
read the phrase the political system in the province of British
Columbia over and over again, even if that is perfectly
grammatical. It is more stylish to use the word it to replace this
phrase. The writer must be careful, however, to make sure that
the path of pointing for deictic words and pronouns is clear, and
that the reader can unambiguously make out what these pointers
are pointing to. If a preceding sentence has referred to multiple
entities, then using the pronoun it in the next sentence might
well leave the reader wondering which of those entities the word
is referring to. Here are some ambiguous antecedents inspired by
student writing:
Other reasons for the increase in obesity in modern
society include a sedentary lifestyle and the poor
quality of food. Interestingly, it (??) is unusual in
hunter–gatherer societies.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the USA have
decreased in recent years, perhaps due to new
attitudes towards fossil fuels. Associations with

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Expository writing

them (??) are becoming more negative as concerns

about climate change increase.
Such examples are grammatically well formed, but where the
question marks appear, the reader faces ambiguity as to what the
pronoun is referring to. In the first example, the word it might
refer to obesity, increase in obesity, or perhaps even sedentary
lifestyle or poor quality of food. In the second example, does the
word them point to emissions, fossil fuels, or perhaps even
attitudes? The writer must spell things out in these cases to make
his writing clear. Clarity is important in any expository writing
and certainly a desideratum in classic style. When it comes to
pronouns and other deictic words, writers should err on the side
of repetition rather than on the side of ambiguity: when in doubt,
spell it out.
Two particular pointing words, that and which, deserve
special consideration not because their antecedents are often
unclear, but because of grammatical foibles that come with their
use. These words describe the noun that typically appears just
before that or which, so that their referent is rarely in doubt.
They add more information to the noun or noun phrase that they
are describing. But along with the humble comma, these two
words add descriptions in two different ways. In one way, the
description is integral to the noun phrase; the description serves
to pick out one definite entity from a host of possibilities. In the
second way, the description adds more information but is not
integral or crucial to understanding the noun phrase that it is
describing; a by-the-way phrase could be a catchphrase for these
added descriptions. The comma plays a vital grammatical role in
differentiating these two types of added descriptions. The by-
the-way phrase is always marked off by commas, before and

29
 Expository writing

after the phrase, and it must use the word which, and not that.
Thus, we write:
The theory of general relativity, which Einstein
formulated, predicts the existence of black holes.
The book called The Wealth of Nations, which
Adam Smith published in 1776, is a classic in
economic theory.
The by-the-way flavour becomes obvious if the writer actually
uses the phrase by the way, which, by the way, would make the
sentence less elegant:
The book called The Wealth of Nations is a classic
in economic theory and by the way, Adam Smith
published it in 1776.
It is ungrammatical to use that in place of which in such
sentences:
The theory of general relativity, *that* Einstein
formulated, predicts the existence of black holes.
The commas are vital for indicating by-the-way phrases.
Without the commas, the descriptive phrase becomes integral to
the noun phrase being described. Sometimes, such added
phrases are necessary for picking out one particular individual
entity out of many possibilities. To turn one of our examples
into a sentence illustrating this notion, we might write:
The book that Adam Smith published in 1776 is a
classic in economic theory.
In the example, the phrase following that serves to pick out the
book in question out of millions of possibilities. The phrase is
integral to the noun phrase, serving to pick out one particular

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Expository writing

book in the abstract sense of a book being a collection of words,

as opposed to one concrete instance of a physical book on
someone’s bookshelf. Note that such integral phrases have no
commas before or after them. It is ungrammatical to add a
comma just because the descriptive phrase is getting long and
the writer feels that he and his readers need to take a
metaphorical breath after it. Thus:
The book that Adam Smith published in 1776*,* is a
classic in economic theory.
A traditional grammatical rule states that in such added
integral descriptions, the writer should use the word that and not
the word which. Grammatical usage has now changed (Pinker
2014) and both words are used in such integral descriptions.
Thus, the writer may write:
The book which Adam Smith published in 1776 is a
classic in economic theory.
This change in grammatical habits means that the humble
comma is now all important for differentiating these two types
of added descriptive phrases. The writer striving for clear
writing must use commas carefully.
The use of the two types of added descriptions that we
have been dealing with is not arbitrary. The two types convey
different meanings, differences that sometimes matter. To go
back to our example of general relativity, it is grammatical to
write:
The theory of general relativity which Einstein
formulated predicts the existence of black holes.
But this sentence conveys something different without the
commas, and it will likely confuse readers. The sentence now

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 Expository writing

suggests that among theories of general relativity, it is the one

that Einstein formulated of which we write. This leaves the
reader searching her cognitive resources for other theories of
general relativity and wondering if she might be ignorant of
some common general knowledge. In fact, it is the writer who
has been imprecise.
Note that in the case of persons, the commas do all the
work in differentiating the two types of added descriptions
because both types call on the word who (or whom for the case
of grammatical objects). In the following sentence, the phrase
after who picks out the entity that we are writing about:
The Prime Minister who came to power after the
2017 election in New Zealand was 37 years of age at
the time.
The who phrase, without commas, delineates the Prime Minister
about whom the writer is saying something, out of the many
Prime Ministers across nations and across the ages. In contrast,
if we already know which Prime Minister the sentence is about,
commas would be used to mark out a by-the-way description
headed by the word who. For example:
Prime Minister Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern, who
came to power after the 2017 election in New
Zealand, was 37 years of age at the time.
This sentence says that Jacinda Ardern was 37 years old when
she came to power, and adds the information that this transpired
after the 2017 elections in New Zealand. The who phrase has
also saved the writer from adding a phrase such as “when she
came to power” at the end of the sentence because that
information is already in the who phrase. The humble comma is
even more important in such cases.

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Expository writing

Punctuation
Punctuation might seem like too trivial a matter to worry about.
But the careful writer must pay attention to details of
punctuation not only because they matter to style, but also
because clarity is often at stake. We have already seen the
importance of the comma in the use of the words that, which,
and who. In other cases, the misuse of commas makes
ungrammatical sentences or foul up the intended meaning.
Consider the following set of simple sentences.
a) *Let’s, eat Fatima.*
b) Let’s eat Fatima.
c) Let’s eat, Fatima.
These sentences differ in the presence and placement of a
comma. Sentence a) is ungrammatical. While sentence b) is
perfectly grammatical, its meaning is profoundly affected by the
lack of the comma found in sentence c). Sentence b) suggests
that Fatima should be eaten while sentence c) beckons Fatima to
partake in eating. What a difference a comma makes. Besides
commas, punctuation for breaks in clauses and the horizontal
lines, hyphens and dashes, figure in this section.
Commas
A comma serves to separate phrases, but not sentential clauses,
in which case it creates a run-on sentence. The comma should
also not be used just because the writer feels that a sentence or
noun phrase is getting long, as if thinking that his readers need a
breath. While in some instances, the use of a comma seems
more like a matter of fashion, at other times, it really matters.
We have seen that in some cases featuring the words who
or which, commas before and after a phrase separates off a by-
the-way comment providing some added description. The rule of

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 Expository writing

commas before and after applies to all by-the-way phrases,

many of which do not have the words who or which. Examples
are easy to concoct:
The President of Ethiopia, currently Sahle-Work
Zewde, plays a ceremonial role in the country’s
politics (Wikipedia).
Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia at the
time, won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
The by-the-way phrases provide what the writer thinks is useful
information although grammatically, these sentences may stand
without the added descriptive phrases, for example:
Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
The added phrases add words for readers to read, so that the
writer should have good reasons for writing by-the-way phrases.
In any case, what is not allowed grammatically is the absence of
either of those bracketing commas. Thus:
*The President of Ethiopia currently Sahle-Work
Zewde, plays a ceremonial role in the country’s
politics (Wikipedia).*
*The President of Ethiopia, currently Sahle-Work
Zewde plays a ceremonial role in the country’s
politics (Wikipedia).*
The reader likely finds these ungrammatical versions harder to
parse.
On the other hand, commas should not be added when it
violates grammar, even when a sentence or noun phrase gets
long. Commas should not be added just because the writer
thinks that somewhere in a long sentence, it is good to add a

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Expository writing

break, as if to let the readers sneak a breath. Thus, the following

sentences are not grammatical.
The winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize*,* was
Abiy Ahmed.
The Prime Minister emerging from the federal
elections in 2017 of the island nation of New
Zealand*,* was Jacinda Ardern.
In the second sentence, the noun phrase serving as the subject
runs on for considerable length, but grammatically, it still should
not have a comma after it. This rule is starting to bend, with
some publications (some journals, for instance) allowing a
comma after long noun phrases in the subject position. But I
recommend that all student writers stick to the grammatical rule
because flaunting it will irk a good number of readers.
A lot more can be said about the humble comma (see
Pinker 2014), but I will stick to just one more topic, a list of
noun phrases separated by commas. This use of commas is
common, and commas are needed, as—besides being
ungrammatical without any commas—it is hard for readers to
make out noun phrases without separating commas. Examples
are again easy to come by.
The ingredients of spaghetti bolognese include pasta,
some kind of tomato-based sauce, minced meat,
garlic, onion, and various herbs.
A healthy diet should include lots of fresh fruits,
fresh vegetables, especially nutritious leafy greens,
legumes, and whole-meal grains.
The second example includes a by-the-way phrase amplifying
fresh vegetables. Note that the examples include a comma

35
 Expository writing

before the last ingredient. This comma is also called the Oxford
comma, and some writers opt to dispense with it, perhaps for a
more minimal use of commas. The sentences would still be
grammatical:
A healthy diet should include lots of fresh fruits,
fresh vegetables, especially nutritious leafy greens,
legumes and whole-meal grains.
One might think then that it is simpler to dispense with the
Oxford comma, but along with Pinker (2014), I recommend
using it because on some occasions, it clarifies matters. The list
of items includes not only nouns on their own, such as legumes,
but also noun phrases with multiple words, such as some kind of
tomato-based sauce. The list may also be adorned with by-the-
way phrases. In some possibly ambiguous instances, the Oxford
comma may serve to keep the items clearly separate. Consider
the following pair of sentences, both grammatical.
a) At the costume party last night, I met two
sad-faced clowns fully decked out in clown
costumes, Maria-Luisa Rodriguez and
Tianying Chung.
b) At the costume party last night, I met two
sad-faced clowns fully decked out in clown
costumes, Maria-Luisa Rodriguez, and
Tianying Chung.
Sentence a) might suggest that the writer met just two
characters, two persons in clown costumes whose last names are
Rodriguez and Chung. But it could also be four persons, two in
clown costumes, plus Maria-Luisa and Tianying, two other
persons. The classic writer would rather avoid such ambiguities
in writing. Sentence b), with the Oxford comma, clearly

36
Expository writing

delineates four characters. Habitual use of the Oxford comma

minimises ambiguity.

Punctuate the following sentences.

1. When people stumble over the roots of truth which
trips us up most often at unexpected times most just
pick themselves up and keep going
2. Cole slaw basically consists of shredded cabbage
carrots and mayonnaise although one could add some
mustard vinegar or other kinds of vegetables

Hyphens and dashes

While good copyeditors clean up little writing mistakes,
including mistakes in the use of these horizontal lines, the
student writer does not have the services of a copyeditor and
should take care of even little matters himself. While some
writers put in the smallest of the lot, the hyphen, as a dash, the
English language has three different horizontal lines whose
functions differ: the hyphen (-), the en dash (–, the short dash),
and the em dash (—, the long dash). The hyphen sits readily at
hand on the keyboard of a laptop computer, while the en dash
and em dash need to be called up with special commands. In the
word processing software Word, the incantation is to Insert
Advanced Symbol; in the ensuing dialogue, both the dashes are
found on the display of “(normal text)”. The ease of injecting a
hyphen, however, does not mean that it should be
indiscriminately used. The careful writer uses dashes when they
are the proper symbols to use.

37
 Expository writing

Some words and morphemes (a unit of meaning) often

join up with other words via the hyphen. Words with the
morpheme co provide examples: co-adaptation, co-tenancy. But
the use of this morpheme also shows that language use evolves.
When a term is used often enough, the direction of linguistic
evolution is to simplify and cut out the hyphen, giving us words
such as cooperation, codependency, or coevolution. And
sometimes, in a transitional phase, one might find both
hyphenated and unhyphenated versions, as in co-evolution and
coevolution. This is where style fashion might dictate which
form appears. A publisher might decree, for example, that
hyphen use should be minimised, and that authors should use the
morpheme co without hyphens. Other morphemes typically get
tacked on to other words without a hyphen, for example, the
morpheme over. The convention is to write words such as
overreact, overindulge, and overemphasise, all without a
hyphen. The careful writer should check online dictionaries and
word-use guides when in doubt.
The hyphen also provides the means for much freer
creation of word phrases. Words in English may be strung
together to make a phrase that serves in the role of an adjective.
Words in such a phrase are joined together by hyphens. While
some of these phrases are run-of-the-mill clichés, others are
spur-of-the-moment creations. The hyphens serve to group the
words together for the reader; the hyphenated bunch provides a
description of clichés in one case and of creations in the other.
Without hyphens, it can tax the reader in trying to figure out
which words have been lumped together. Adverbs added on to
adjectives, however, generally do not come with hyphens. The
dazzlingly brilliant writer would not put a hyphen between
dazzlingly and brilliant.

38
Expository writing

Moving up in horizontal length, the en dash is used to join

two words or noun phrases that are in various senses connected,
temporally, spatially, or conceptually. It also serves as the minus
sign. The following examples illustrate the en dash in these
realms.
5 – 2 = 3.
John F. Kennedy served as President of the USA
1961–1963.
But note:
John F. Kennedy served as President of the USA
*from 1961–1963.*
An alternative formulation is to forego the en dash altogether:
John F. Kennedy served as President of the USA
from 1961 to 1963.
Other examples of the use of the en dash include:
I prefer the Sydney–Dallas flight to the Sydney–
LAX flight because the customs procedure is saner
at Dallas.
The New Orleans Pelicans defeated the Houston
Rockets 127–112.
Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd propagated the
doctrine of gene–culture co-evolution.
Note the en dash between gene and culture, conceptual partners
in the doctrine, but the hyphen (which is sometimes dispensed
with) in co-evolution. The careful writer uses the en dash in all
cases of conceptual partners.

39
 Expository writing

Finally, the long em dash provides one means of injecting

some by-the-way clause or phrase—an addition that is often
meant to add some drama and colour to the writing. The added
clause or phrase may come at the end of a sentence, in which
case only a single em dash is used, or the added material may
appear in the middle of a sentence, in which case the em dash
appears both before and after the clause or phrase. The em-
dashed material may be something akin to an entire sentence or
a part of a sentence, a phrase. Here are some examples from a
published article.
Schulz et al. … break new ground in showing how
the specific practices of a branch of one of the
world’s largest religions—Christianity—can in part
explain widespread variation in human psychology
around the world. (Gelfand 2019, p. 686)
Illuminating the ways in which cultures vary—and
why they have evolved in different ways given
certain socioenvironmental forces—can help us to
empathize with those who are different. (Gelfand
2019, p. 687)
Michele Gelfand used the em dash on 5 occasions in the short
commentary of a little more than one journal page in Science
Magazine to clarify and dramatise various noun phrases. Note
that Science Magazine, along with many other publications,
does not leave any spaces before or after the em dash. The em
dash adds spice to writing, but should be treated like a spice:
good when sprinkled here and there but not when it is overused.

40
Expository writing

Punctuate the following sentences.

1. A head on collision with the boss is a gut wrenching
experience because boss employee relationships have
been frosty an experience that should be avoided at all
costs
2. The Super Bowl in 2020 between San Francisco and
Kansas City watched by about 100 million people
featured a fourth quarter comeback by Kansas City.
The 49ers Chiefs clash also exhibited a not to be
missed blockbuster half time show starring Shakira
and Jennifer Lopez
3. The sensorimotor tasks that animals routinely
accomplish are actually highly complex just try to
make a robot that does the same rather than basic
behavioural responses (from Keijzer 2017)

Breaks of sentential clauses: fullstops, semi-colons, colons,

brackets, em dashes (again)
Grammatically, sentences must be separated by punctuation, the
most common means of which is using the fullstop, “.”. Other
means of separating sentences include the other items in the
subsection title. Generally, for sentences expressing different
ideas—remember our advice of one sentence, one idea—a
fullstop is used. On other occasions, however, one of those other
means of punctuating may seem more appropriate or add
elegance or colour to the writing.

41
 Expository writing

Semi-colons (“;”) work much like fullstops. Their usual

role is to link up two separate sentences that are closely
connected. In a sense, the writer thinks that they work better as a
single sentence, but he chooses not to join them with joining
words such as and or but. Note that when the two components
being joined are each a sentence in its own right, a comma may
not be used as a mark of separation. This creates a run-on
sentence called a comma splice. This grammatical error is
readily fixed by converting the offending comma into a semi-
colon. Here is a concocted example.
José likes to throw parties for his friends; for
example, he enjoys decorating his place for hosting a
birthday party.
Because the second, related component is a full sentence, the
two parts are punctuated with a semi-colon. If the second part is
simply a noun phrase, a comma should be used:
José likes to throw parties for his friends, for
example, birthday parties.
A colon (“:”) works like a punctuation mark of
announcement. What follows it is usually something, whether a
list or a single point, that the sentence in progress has
announced. What follows the colon may be a bunch of sentences
or a list of noun phrases. Here are two examples of a list of noun
phrases from Gelfand (2019, p. 667).
The intensity of kin-based institutions was defined
using two measures: a Kinship Intensity Index …
and a measure of the prevalence of cousin marriage
…
Psychological variation—the main outcome of
interest—was captured by previously collected data

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Expository writing

… grouped into three categories: individualism and

independence, conformity and obedience, and
impersonal prosociality.
In the second example, note also the use of the em dash as well
as the Oxford comma before the last item in the list. With the
Oxford comma, the reader knows that conformity and obedience
bunch together into one category, while impersonal sociality
forms another category. Without the Oxford comma, ambiguity
would reign. What follows the colon may be an entire sentence
rather than just a noun phrase. Here is an example from Wehner
(2019).
… Pauline Fleishchmann and Robin Grob made a
completely unexpected discovery: when the ants
perform their learning walks prior to foraging, they
employ a geomagnetic compass.
Brackets and the em dash both serve to cordon off a chunk
of words from the main flow of a sentence, but with different
effects. What is in brackets comes across as more mundane
information, perhaps there in case the reader does not know the
meaning of a phrase being used. What is marked off by the em
dash is typically bolder and more dramatic. Neither form of
punctuation should be overused, in order to avoid too much
distraction to the main flow of sentences.
Commonly misused words
Pinker (2014) warns writers about many commonly misused
words, but this little section features just two sets that I have
seen with some frequency in students’ writing. Each set
concerns a confusion between two words.

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 Expository writing

Words affect and effect

This confusable pair are spelled and even pronounced similarly,
with the weak first syllable often morphing into a nondescript
“uh” sound (called a schwa in linguistics). To make matters
more complicated, each word may be used as either a verb or a
noun. Because this set of words is often good to use, the careful
writer should be sure to use them correctly to avoid
embarrassment. Their brief meanings are given in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2. Meanings of the words affect and effect.
Word Pronunciation Brief meaning
Affect Stress on first Feeling, emotion
(noun) syllable
Affect Stress on second To influence
(verb) syllable
Effect Stress on second Consequence, result
(noun) syllable
Effect Stress on second To carry out some
(verb) syllable procedure

As a noun, affect, with the stress on the first syllable,

means emotion or feeling. It has an adjective form as well:
affective. As a verb, affect, with the stress on the second
syllable, means to influence or play a role in some outcome. An
example is:
Using the words affect and effect incorrectly will
affect the grade you get for style in your writing
adversely.

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Expository writing

The word effect also comes in verb and noun forms, both
with the stress on the second syllable. As a noun, effect means
some consequence or result of something. An example is:
One effect of misusing the words effect and affect is
that your grader will think less of your writing.
The word effect may also be used as a verb to mean carry out.
Sometimes, the word is used in describing procedures, as in the
following examples.
We effected a manipulation to prepare the students
for the testing phase of the experiment.
We carried out a manipulation to prepare the
students for the testing phase of the experiment.
These two sentences convey the same meaning.
Verbs lie and lay
Both of these words have meanings as nouns as well as verbs,
but it is in the verb form that they get confused; I do not recall
any mistakes in the noun forms of these words. The word lie has
two different senses as a verb, to tell something false or to
assume a horizontal position, typically in the phrase lie down.
The word lie is often confused with the word lay because lay is
also the past tense of lie (Table 2.3). Both lie and lay have
something to do with putting things down, but a key difference
is that lie is an intransitive verb whereas lay is a transitive verb.
What this in turn means is that the verb lie does not come with a
grammatical object. One simply lies down. Grammatically, one
may not lie something down. In contrast, the verb lay must have
a grammatical object. Something must be there in the sentence
that is laid down, whether concrete or abstract and metaphorical,
as in these examples.

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 Expository writing

Fatima laid the cake down on the picnic blanket

carefully and then lay down on the blanket herself.
The team leader laid the rules of the dormitory down
before the team lay down in their beds to sleep.
Hopefully, this little paragraph along with Table 2.3 will suffice
for getting all students to use this pair of tricky verbs correctly.
Table 2.3 Past forms of the verbs lie and lay.
Verb Past tense Past participle
Lie Lay (I lay down to Lain (I had lain down
(intransitive) sleep.) to sleep.)
Lay (transitive) Laid (I laid the baby Laid (I had laid the
down in her bed.) baby down in her
bed.)

Final words
To come back to the start of this little book, writing is a strange
business because it is like talking to an absent audience. No one
is around to ask you to clarify if matters are not clear. That is
why it behooves the writer to make his writing as clear as
possible. Clarity is a desideratum for most writing styles,
certainly including classic style. Reading this little book, even a
few times over, will not magically make a writer write better.
Improvement comes mostly from practice. But hopefully,
heeding the key points in this book may let student writers avoid
awful foibles and put down grammatical sentences that form
coherent paragraphs. My hope is that getting rid of a number of
common errors could improve the lot of student writing.

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Common errors include disorganised paragraphs from

which it is hard to discern a theme, sentences that run on,
sentences that form only a part of a sentence or a sentence
fragment, pronouns and other pointing (deictic) words whose
reference is ambiguous, convoluted sentences that are hard to
make out, sentences adorned with uninformative fluff,
punctuation errors, and various grammatical errors that have not
received attention in this book because they do not fall into neat
categories. The section headings, summarised on the Contents
page, give a checklist.
Students should make the effort to improve writing,
beyond the immediate academic reason of getting better grades
in university assignments. We live in a fast-changing digital age
with new technologies popping up regularly and at an increasing
pace. The job market is also fast changing, with the future
worker expected to partake in multiple professions in her or his
employment. Despite all these current and projected changes,
the need for writing has not diminished. If anything, it has
increased because digital media often call for written
communication. Just think of emails, for example. The need to
communicate in writing to fellow workers and to people beyond
one’s place of employment will not disappear. Those who can
communicate clearly in writing stand to gain better employment
options. Writing is perhaps the most important generic skill to
hone in university.

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References
Cheng, Ken. 2019, 2020. Expository scientific writing: A short
guide. Online:
https://http://www.mq.edu.au/research/kenchenglab.
Gelfand, Michele J. 2019. Explaining the puzzle of human
diversity. Science 366 (6466):686-687.
Keijzer, Fred A. 2017. Evolutionary convergence and
biologically embodied cognition. Interface Focus 7:
20160123.
Pinker, Steven. 2014. The sense of style. London: Penguin
Random House.
Wehner, Rüdiger. 2019. The Cataglyphis Mahrèsienne: 50 years
of Cataglyphis research at Mahrès. Journal of
Comparative Physiology A 205 (5):641-659.

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