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Professor Carlisle, FSCJ. Rubric based in part upon work by Richard A. Lanham’s Revising Prose RUBRIC: CONCISION (academic paper)

Unacceptable, poor, or marginal Successful In poorly written papers, sentences do not do enough work. Sentence length should be determined by the amount of work being done, by the amount of real content being delivered, and no sentence should be longer than necessary.

• Sentences that do not do enough work, that do not provide adequate or meaningful content, should be cut down and combined with other sentences to create strong, concise sentences.

• Sentences that do a lot of work, sentences that have powerful content, should be short and direct. Do not hide important content in overly long or complicated sentences.

In poorly written papers, sentences are often full of overblown, pretentious language and cliché. • Do not use words whose only purpose is to “sound smart.” Use words and phrases that most clearly and

powerfully convey your ideas. The purpose of writing is to communicate. The more complicated and sophisticated your ideas, the more important it is to write clearly and directly. Dressing simplistic ideas in fancy words only accentuates their lack of sophistication and depth.

• Do not use clichéd phrasing. Absolutely do NOT use “at the end of the day” or “in society today.”

In poorly written papers, sentences are often full of prepositional phrases (a prepositional phrase is the preposition, the object of the preposition, and the modifiers between the two). Prepositional phrases often “sound good” but are really just fluff, empty of real significance.

• Do not overuse prepositional phrases. Pay attention to how you use prepositions of time (after, around, at, before, between, during, since, from, until, on), place (above, across, against, along, between, beyond, by down, in, inside, into, near, through, toward, under), direction (at, for, on, to, in, into, onto, between), manner (by, on, in, like, with), and relation (by, with, of, for, by, like, as). If you are using prepositional phrases to “sound academic,” STOP.

In poorly written papers, sentences often rely too much on “to be” verbs. • Do not use a “to be” verb, such as “is,” “am,” “are,” “was,” “were,” “being,” “been,” and “be,” in place of a

stronger verb. (For example, “he was thinking hard,” instead of “he brooded.”) To be” verbs are weak and insubstantial. Use verbs that have force and don’t expect your nouns and noun modifiers to do all of the work.

Poorly written sentences often contain redundancies (for example, “In Carol Dweck’s article she argues…) and needless wordiness (for example, “My thing, is that I, personally, believe…” or “the reason why is because…”

In poorly written papers, sentences often use a formula that sounds academic, but is actually just wasted space: “blah, blah, blah is that…” or “… this is blah, blah, blah”

• Skip all the blah, blah, blah, and get rid of the “is that” or “this is.”

Poorly written papers often rely on metacommentary. Metacommentary, telling your reader what or why you are doing or noticing as you write or explain, is usually not necessary or appropriate and is often a waste of space. (For example, “As I explained previously,” and “As one reads the texts one understands that they argue…”)

Poorly written papers often rely on positioning to move the reader through the paper. These papers use the place or position of an idea or event as presented in the current paper, in another text, or as occurred in history. (For example, “Then the texts go on to explain that….”)

Successful papers are made up of sentences that do real work. (For example, a successful paper will name a text, introduce its author and its sociohistorical context in one sentence rather than in three separate sentences.) Successful papers are made up sentences that use appropriately academic language and tone without stooping to pretentious or overblown word choices or unnecessarily complicated structures. Successful papers do not rely on clichéd phrasing. Successful papers are made up of direct and active sentences that do not contain strings of fluffy prepositional phrases. Successful papers contain sentences with strong active verbs. Successful papers contain sentences that are clear and direct, sentences that prioritize meaning over style. Successful papers do not rely on metacommentary or positioning as a substitute for real explanation, connection, or analysis.