Study Guide
Writing: Style
This is a tricky topic, but I'm going to try to simplify it a bit by restricted the scope of what I mean by the word. Put briefly, by "style" here I mean those aspects of writing not covered by the other sections on writing: not structure and not grammar. It has to do with how formal your writing is, how persuasive, how elegant or interesting.
You may object that style is personal and subjective and therefore ought not be evaluated as part of the grade, but that argument is not correct, for two reasons. First, remember that your goal is always to communicate successfully with your reader. If your writing is clumsy, uninteresting, slap-dash, then you aren't going to communicate as well. That's something you need to know. Second, in any area where art is involved, style is always evaluated, and history is an art form, at least in part for it involves literary writing. Moreover, anyone experienced in the field understands how to evaluate style regardless of personal preferences.
In any event, in my classes style does play a role. It's not as large a role as argumentation, evidence, research, historical understanding, but since it does play a role, what guidance can I give that will help you? Not a lot, it turns out, but here's what I've been able to glean from years of grading term papers.
incomplete as of June 2009