Which comes first: grammar, mechanics, or composition? Part 1

Woody Allen once said: I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Why instead didn't he say: I don't want to attend the death of myself, but that does not mean I am afraid of it?

Is it true that only one way exists to express any idea?

• Or, is it: There is only one way to express any idea?
• Or: To express any idea, there is only one way?
• Or: To express any idea, only one way exists?
• Or: To express any idea, one way exists only?

What is going on here? Given that each of the various ways to express an idea is grammatically correct, how do I know which way is the best? Let's say I have a problem I want to state well. After all, Charles Kettering once said: A problem well stated is a problem half solved. But Mr. Kettering makes no mention of a problem's greater context. From education and experience, I would venture to add: A problem well defined is a problem well stated. So, toward the perfect expression of a problem or any idea, before I overly concern myself with the grammar and mechanics of my sentences, I need to understand the relationship between the parts and the whole: my sentences and their context.

Let's take a closer look at the word, define. What may be a surprise to some is that the secondary meaning of DEFINE reveals the secret of stating a problem well: to mark out the boundaries or limits of something. So, before a problem can be well stated, the stater must have a very clear idea of the problem's scope. (How to have a very clear idea of the scope of a problem is beyond the scope of this article, but discussion of it can be found at a future link, here.)

The scope of some problems requires a good deal more than one isolated sentence. One obvious example is this article's central problem: Given that each of the various ways to express an idea is grammatically correct, how do I know which way is the best?

While seeking the words to address this problem, I needed to “write around” it for awhile. I drafted some sentences to lead up to it, and I drafted some sentences to follow it. I was brainstorming. I wasn't yet even aware of when I had arrived at the place where my central problem would be stated. As I brainstormed, I didn't make too much of a fuss about grammar and mechanics. Rather, I merely kept in mind that the structure of any sentence depends both on the relative importance of the details in it, and on the ideas expressed in the sentences that come before and after it. So, I wasn't ready to tweak my grammar and mechanics until I had adequately marked out the boundaries or limits of my problem. In other words, for larger works of exposition, in the composing and revising process, attention to organization of all ideas should precede attention to grammar and mechanics.

But first, for the sake of simplicity, let's talk about sentences that appear in isolation. These are rare, but they are iconically important. I am talking about proverbial sentences, known as maxims, aphorisms, or wise sayings. The structure of these sentences depends on the relative importance and function of the details inside them. Let's define our terms here. The term, structure, may bring to mind the order of the words. It may also bring to mind the choice of the words. But, perhaps more importantly, structure can be behind the music of a sentence, its melody and rhythm. And it can be behind the desired impact on the mind of the perceiver.

Let's look again at Mr. Allen's words of wisdom: I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens. And, let's compare it to the alternative phrasing: I don't want to attend the death of myself, but that does not mean I am afraid of it. Even short constructions such as the ones above must bow to the authority of literary and rhetorical devices. Devices (more found at external link) relevant to Mr. Allen's quote are: 1) cadence, 2) irony or paradox, 3) suspense, 4) syntax, 5) tone, and 6) tragicomedy.

1. cadence: Mr. Allen's version makes use of two commonly heard expressions: afraid to die, and don't want to be there. Effectively, the timing for his delivery therefore can be quick and the impact percussive. The alternative version makes use of an awkwardly unusual phrase: attend the death of myself. This awkwardness causes the loss of the momentum that is needed for the audience to have the aha experience of the irony in the punchline.
2. irony or paradox: Mr. Allen sequences his details so that first his audience is set up to be knocked over by his punchline. His audience first visualizes his sudden death. Perhaps they see him splat onto a sidewalk from great heights, or in his deathbed exhaling his last breath. While the dying image is fresh in mind, Mr. Allen delivers the punchline image of the improbable, his becoming disembodied just in time to miss his own death. Perhaps the audience visualizes Mr. Allen's spirit springing from his body just in time. Simultaneously enough, his audience also has an aha experience of paradox. Mr. Allen forces the mind of his audience to reconcile the opposites of dying and not dying. Paradox can be funny that way.
3. suspense: By first mentioning the grave issue of death, Mr. Allen's version effectively triggers his audience to expect "the other shoe to drop" so to speak. The alternative version confuses the audience with the idea of not wanting to attend one's own funeral. This alternative could go in too many different directions. Maybe he doesn't want to hear the eulogy, or see certain people, or even hear the music chosen. The audience isn't given enough focus to have any expectations. They may be idly curious, but they are not effectively put in suspense.
4. syntax: Mr. Allen would have been grammatically correct in saying: Death doesn't scare me. But, his choice to end the first clause with TO DIE puts proper emphasis on his dying and not his being afraid. The punchline's success depends on the proper emphasis to set it up. The punchline works by suddenly swapping emphasis. At first, death seems to be the key detail. Then, just as the idea of fear begins to fade in the mind of the audience, suddenly it reveals itself to be the most important detail of all. Mr. Allen is so afraid that he can't even bear to watch.
5. tone: No humor is inherent in the alternative version. It states a personal truth in a matter of fact manner. No irony is set up. No rugs are being pulled out from under the audience. In contrast, Mr. Allen's version results in the aim to make his audience laugh. Mr. Allen is a master of irony, correspondingly even in his tone. So many other ways exist to express a fear of death. Mr. Allen chooses understatement. He speaks of his own death as if it were no more serious than his wife being served their divorce papers. What we fear most we speak of in the vaguest terms or not at all. The more understated Mr. Allen can be about his own death, we know the more afraid of it he really is.
6. tragicomedy: No tragedy or comedy is the driving force behind the alternative version. Some would say that its effect is anti-climactic, first the person dies and then the person worries about it. In contrast, Mr. Allen's version functions according to the principles of tragicomedy: an unexpected happy ending to what might have been a terrible catastrophe. One possible expectation resulting from being informed that someone is not afraid to die is that someone might have just been handed a death sentence, a fatal prognosis. Rather, how delightful to fall victim to Mr. Allen's joke.

So, have I killed the frog yet? For as E. B. White once said: Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.

Now that I have demonstrated how the structure of sentences that appear in isolation depends on the relative importance and function of the details inside them, I will move on to sentences that appear in the context of greater works, in Part 2 of this article.

As a mental note to both my readers and myself, I will make my transition from single sentence to greater unit of sentences by remarking on the non-verbalized greater context of Mr. Allen's "ironicisms".

More houses and industry, or nature?

Given:

In your country, is there more need for land to be left in its natural condition or is there more need for land to be developed for housing and industry? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

The Sample Essay Draft Step by Step

1. Quickly generate a strong opinion.

I can't live without nature.

2. Generate supportive body topics.

I get the best food from wild plants and animals. I breathe the cleanest air in the wilderness. I drink the cleanest water in the wilderness.

3. Develop body details.

I get the best food from wild plants and animals. They are my source of super nutrients, such as omega six and omega nine. I have read many articles documenting that these essential fatty acids are lacking in corn-fed livestock. I have also read many articles documenting that cultivated vegetables and fruits have been altered to be less fibrous and sweeter than their wild counterparts. The more sugar and less fiber I consume, the more I gain weight and suffer fatigue.

I breathe the cleanest air in the wilderness. In my experience, my allergies and other respiratory problems disappear when I am away from urban or even suburban developed areas. I think the air is not only cleaner because in the wilderness I am away from gas exhaust and micro-particulate, but also because so much foliage acts as a natural filter.

I drink the cleanest water in the wilderness, If I am lucky enough to get far away from urban household and industrial waste water, then I don't have to worry about heavy metal contamination or persistent organic pollutants. I can drink water that falls from a clean sky and percolates through porous rock. What would I need a filter for?

4. Organize paragraph order and embed transitions.

So my first content paragraph details logically follow from their topic sentence, I revise my topic sentence: I get the best food from wild animals and plants. Also, using transitions, such as first, second, and finally, would improve reader navigation.

5. Formulate thesis sentence.

I prioritize conservation of natural areas over development for housing and industry because I get the best food from wild animals and plants, I breathe the cleanest air, and drink the cleanest water in the wilderness.

6. Draft introduction.

Every time I see a bulldozer knocking down trees and digging deep holes for another Mcmansion, apartment complex, shopping center, or factory, I lose my temper. I pass by so many empty buildings that could be recycled. And I fear for my own health. I prioritize conservation of natural areas over development for housing and industry because I get the best food from wild animals and plants, I breathe the cleanest air, and drink the cleanest water in the wilderness.

7. Draft conclusion.

I am a conservationist because I can't stay healthy eating factory foods, breathing foul air, and drinking toxic water. My brain and body depend on the varied and balanced nutrition that comes from organisms only in complete ecosystems, the wilderness. The more fumes and micro-particulate I breathe, the sicker my lungs and heart get. The more toxins I take in from both unnatural air and water, the less my kidneys and liver are able to keep up their filtering jobs and I am poisoned to death over time. I can't live without nature.

8. Proofread.

Every time I see a bulldozer knocking down trees and digging deep holes for another Mcmansion, apartment complex, shopping center, or factory, I lose my temper. I pass by so many empty buildings that could be recycled. And[,] I fear for my own health. I prioritize conservation of natural areas over development for housing and industry because I get the best food from wild animals and plants, [breathe] the cleanest air, and drink the cleanest water in the wilderness.

I get the best food from wild plants and animals. They are my source of super nutrients, such as omega six and omega nine. I have read many articles documenting that these essential fatty acids are lacking in corn-fed livestock. I have also read many articles documenting that cultivated vegetables and fruits have been altered to be less fibrous and sweeter than their wild counterparts. The more sugar and less fiber I consume, the more I gain weight and suffer fatigue.

I breathe the cleanest air in the wilderness. In my experience, my allergies and other respiratory problems disappear when I am away from urban or even suburban developed areas. I think the air is not only cleaner because in the wilderness I am away from gas exhaust and micro-particulate, but also because so much foliage acts as a natural filter.

I drink the cleanest water in the wilderness[.] If I am lucky enough to get far away from urban household and industrial waste water, then I don't have to worry about heavy metal contamination or persistent organic pollutants. I can drink water that falls from a clean sky and percolates through porous rock. What would I need a filter for?

I am a conservationist because I can't stay healthy eating factory foods, breathing foul air, and drinking toxic water. My brain and body depend on the varied and balanced nutrition that comes from organisms only in complete ecosystems, the wilderness. The more fumes and micro-particulate I breathe, the sicker my lungs and heart get. The more toxins I take in from both unnatural air and water, the less my kidneys and liver are able to keep up their filtering jobs and I am poisoned to death over time. I can't live without nature.

The Test of English as a Banal Language

Do you teach for TOEBL (the Test of English as a Banal Language)? Or, are you studying to pass it? I mean banal, as in trite, hackneyed, clichéd, platitudinous, stale, stereotyped, and dull. As an ESL teacher, I ask this question after attempting to model for my students five level-five responses to TOEFL independent essay prompts. As an English student, I'd had many teachers, beyond the one-armed Mr. Dougherty back in middle school, program my mind with the same mantra: Show, don't tell. So, what better way to help ESL students pass the independent essay section than show them how it is done? Give them a formula and then demonstrate how to follow it.

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However, while I am proud of trying out writing assignments myself before teaching how to do them, I am now even more disgusted with the standardized writing test that has become as ubiquitous as those square robin's-egg-blue covered composition booklets (I know I am showing my age here) in both native and non-native English classes. Some know the aforementioned writing standard as the five-paragraph essay. Some teachers have attended meetings with each other where they have lowered their heads and conceded that this formula is basically useless except as training wheels for beginning composition writers and composition test takers. Where in the artistic or commercial world of writing have anglophiles seen The Formula, applied, get past a market-savvy editor?

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By this point my readers today should have a clear enough idea of what I am talking about and why. I will move on to my thesis statement: The independent essay section of the TOEFL contributes to the proliferation of banal writing via the way the prompts are phrased and its thirty-minute time limit.

According to my thesis, I suspect my readers anticipate only two content development paragraphs, not three, and some are wincing already at this violation of The Formula. However, I will develop three topics of content, beginning with some emphasis on the phenomenon of the proliferation of banal writing. Ultimately, only the universe knows the true cause of banal writing and all I am doing is some near-sighted finger-pointing in not-very-zen-like exasperation. After over two decades of being strong-armed by the Texas, New Jersey, and Virginia state boards of education to devote months of classroom time every year to what in grad school at the University of Texas, El Paso, Dr. David Schwalm had called “teaching to the test”, I left the classroom more than a little exasperated.

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Eventually and hungrily, my zealot's faith in the internet's promise to save the world led me to log on as a Smarthinking tutor, paid by the hour to guide college and graduate students in passing their essay and report assignments, and their thesis and dissertation boards. Because when someone's confidentiality is at stake one can't always “show”, my readers today will have to take my word for it that the stacks of stale virtual-paper banalities passing across my Windows desktop every day was suffocating. And, though they could be deleted, they could not be helped. The mediocrity did not begin with the student. It began with the assignments that were not first tested by their givers, to say the least.

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To say more, those English 101 assignments were routinely phrased in a way that set the stage for perhaps four to eight more college years of banality. The TOEFL independent essay prompts typify this misdirection. For example, given: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: People should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing. Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.” Now, let's see what happens when even a degreed writer is prompted to write about “people”, those faceless, ageless, sexless stick figures most notorious for their role in the game of hangman. One writer fastens the following first-sentence-hook to reel readers in and play them like tuna: “Life is challenging.” Oh well, it is probably just a poor, off-shore educated fool who tested out of the foundational course that indoctrinates freshmen in the seven steps to becoming a more scintillating writer, right? But, what if the ESL graduate has a web site that presumes to teach non-native speakers how to pass the TOEFL independent essay test? (See i-courses.org.)

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A comprehensive critique of the complete offending sample essay is beyond the scope of this article. I will "rip it a new one" in a future post. Instead, here I will annotate an adequate number of TOEFL prompts to help substantiate my implied assertion that banality is a successful meme. 1) “Nowadays, food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.” Preparing food is challenging. 2) “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should give the same amount of money to their students’ sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.” Budgeting for school athletics and literacy is challenging. 3) “People work because they need money to live. What are some other reasons that people work? Discuss one or more of these reasons. Use specific examples and details to support your answer.” Work is challenging.

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There, that takes care of the first sentence to any essay that comes between me and my dream job supervising all the people who are better writers than I am. (Now for the template sentences that get me to my template thesis....) Though, in all fairness, I must applaud every TOEFL prompt that features the following component: “Which do you prefer?” Hey, you talking to me? However, the template's “use specific reasons and examples”, no matter how varied the syntax, perhaps because of its very predictability, seems to go right over the head of a hack, so I implore those at the top of the ETS heap to scrap all the “people” in favor of “you” and “your”, to snap sophomoric writers' heads out of their rhinestone vocabulary bling belly buttons.

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What was my final content topic? I've been writing so long now I can't remember. Oh yes, the imposed thirty-minute time limit. How my heart sinks for every creative writer, both dormant and self-actualized, who encounters such compelling topics as parenting, environmentalism, friendship, animal welfare, urban planning, technology, and government spending. These frustrated poets and philosophers must be frothing at the mouth to be channeled and acknowledged, only to be either subjugated to IKEA-assembly of mass produced particle board, nuts, and bolts verbiage, or to repeat the old adage “Ya want fries with that” ad nauseam (as in “you are breathing borrowed air” and not the role play card game).

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Heaven help those who don't even know that an essay in first person singular point of view is not only permitted, it has been proven by such greats as Jack London, Montaigne, Zora Neale Hurston, and Erma Bombeck. But, once divinely helped, given a prompt about friends or family, what truly gifted writer would pluck prematurely while conjuring Aunt Mimi the opera singer or Huxley the standard poodle before the complete ripening of a metaphor? Endless hours of classroom time, either face to face or virtual, tick by in thirty minute mini-ordeals, so that the dullards may master writing by numbers, and the effervescent may reward themselves for swallowing their poetic pride with a spiked Dr. Pepper during break.

At the risk of committing a first person crime, defined by Tracy Kidder's The Best American Essays 1994, partly as “Pretending to confess to their bad behavior, they revel in their colorfulness”, I ask, which is worse, over-the-top from the unbridled brilliant who eventually learn the difference between a coffee house rant and a company memo, or under-the-gun from the perfect spellers who would evaluate moon walks with a stop watch?

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Upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, albeit scorched by a self-indulgent passion, I am still tightly gripping my readers' hands, beseeching, as TOEFL teachers or students, please do whatever you can to fight the proliferation of banal writing. Write in first person about Uncle Elmo and the faded pink dashboard fleece. Conceal a copy of Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” among the pages of your TOEFL or SAT prep guide. Whether teaching or learning, try your hand at some TOEFL prompts, throw caution to the wind and develop two content topics into full sonatas instead of three two-sentence wonders in Stephen Hawkings's automaton voice, slander a personal friend or relative, confess to a fictitious crime committed among the aisles of a Dollar Store, live in a fraudulent city, identify the cheap fragrance your test scorers will wear, stack all those stick figure “people” together and burn them in effigy, exorcising all prosaic banality from the left cerebral hemispheres of your children and your children's children. You can keep your stop watch. You'll need it when you practice being perfectly mediocre for the TOEFL. But please, help me shield the collective immigrant mind from yet another meme of mediocrity.

P.S. My audio features the obsolete British pronunciation of the word, banal. I like it because it rhymes with anal.

Are pets really that good for us? Are we good for them?

Given:

Many people have a close relationship with their pets. These people treat their birds, cats, or other animals as members of their family. In your opinion, are such relationships good? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

The Sample Essay Draft Step by Step

1. Quickly generate a strong opinion.

How would you like to be a love slave?

2. Generate supportive body topics.

My treating animals like humans may be bad for the animal's well-being. My treating animals like humans may be bad for my social development.

3. Develop body details.

My treating animals like humans may be bad for the animal's well-being. I have had many pets in my life, but I stopped keeping them after I realized how much I had enslaved them. For example, my last pet, a big panther-looking black neutered male cat, died early because of restrictions as a pet owner I imposed on him. He died of urinary tract blockage. In the first half of his seven-year life, gradually I transformed him from an outdoor to an indoor cat because he tended to roam very far away from home, often crossing busy streets or getting into fights with other cats. However, as an indoor cat, he no longer had the luxury of frequent urination to mark territory as he would instinctively do. He knew he was restricted to the litter box. On an artificial diet of cat food, he was doomed to develop mineral crystals that ultimately caused such blockage that he would have to live with a catheter. On his verge of death, I yielded to the vet's recommendation that he be put to sleep and spared the agony of surgery, recovery, and life with a catheter bag.

My treating animals like humans may not only be bad for the animal's well-being, it may also be bad for my own social development. The decision to no longer keep pets was in fact a liberating one for me. For example, the pet I talked about in the previous paragraph had become an ideal companion for me at home, so much so that I was reluctant to go out unless necessary! Figgy, as I called him, slept in my bed, arose when I did, ate when I did, answered me whenever I addressed him by name, and he was always sitting by my front door when I opened it to enter and be welcomed by his sweet little voice. Many times more than I care to admit, I hurried home to be welcomed by him, and I suffered some separation anxiety if I was delayed. Those years, I lost many opportunities to bond with people, make new friends, learn how to love people who weren't totally at my mercy for food and friendship.

4. Organize paragraph order and embed transitions.

The order and topics look logical as they are. While composing my draft, I used the not-only-but-also construction to link my two topic sentences. I can use this construction in my thesis.

5. Formulate thesis sentence.

My treating animals like humans may not only be bad for the animal's well-being, it may also be bad for my own social development.

6. Draft introduction.

How can a person who has grown up with and lived with pets all her life suddenly turn against the practice? That is what I did. And now I ask, was living with pets as though they were members of my family a good thing? I don't think so. My treating animals like humans may not only be bad for the animal's well-being, it may also be bad for my own social development.

7. Draft conclusion.

I had grown up with and lived with pets my whole life as if they were members of my own family, but after the untimely death of my last pet, Figgy the cat, I suddenly turned against the practice and have remained pet free ever since. I look back at how much that cat and all the others before him seemed to love me, faithfully by my side anywhere at home. But now I know how much I prevented them from expressing their true animal instincts, the roaming and marking territory, for example. They were in fact my love slaves, totally at my mercy and definitely not free. And I enslaved myself by my attachment to them. Now, when anyone tells me they are thinking of buying or adopting a cat or dog, I ask them, how would you like to be the love slave of a human rather than free to be your own animal self?

8. Proofread.

How can a person who has grown up with and lived with pets all her life suddenly turn against the practice? That is what I did. And now I ask, was living with pets as though they were members of my [own]family a good thing? I don't think so. My treating animals like humans may not only be bad for the animal's well-being, it may also be bad for my own social development.

My treating animals like humans may be bad for the animal's well-being. I have had many pets in my life, but I stopped keeping them after I realized how much I had enslaved them. For example, my last pet, a big panther-looking black neutered male cat, died early because of restrictions as a pet owner I imposed on him. He died of urinary tract blockage. In the first half of his seven-year life, gradually I transformed him from an outdoor to an indoor cat because he tended to roam very far away from home, often crossing busy streets or getting into fights with other cats. However, as an indoor cat, he no longer had the luxury of frequent urination to mark territory as he would instinctively do. He knew he was restricted to the litter box. On an artificial diet of cat food, he was doomed to develop mineral crystals that ultimately caused such [a] blockage that he would have to live with a catheter. On his verge of death, I yielded to the vet's recommendation that he be put to sleep and spared the agony of surgery, recovery, and life with a catheter bag. [If he survived the ordeal.]

My treating animals like humans may not only be bad for the animal's well-being, it may also be bad for my own social development. The decision to no longer keep pets was in fact a liberating one for me. For example, the pet I talked about in the previous paragraph had become an ideal companion for me at home, so much so that I was reluctant to go out unless necessary! Figgy, as I called him, slept in my bed, arose when I did, ate when I did, answered me whenever I addressed him by name, and he was always sitting by my front door when I opened it to enter and be welcomed by his sweet little voice. Many times more than I care to admit, I hurried home to be welcomed by him, and I suffered some separation anxiety if I was delayed. Those years, I lost many opportunities to bond with people, make new friends, [and] learn how to love people who weren't totally at my mercy for food and friendship.

I had grown up with and lived with pets my whole life as if they were members of my own family, but after the untimely death of my last pet, Figgy the cat, I suddenly turned against the practice and have remained pet free ever since. I look back at how much that cat and all the others before him seemed to love me, faithfully by my side anywhere [in my] home. But now I know how much I prevented them from expressing their true animal instincts, the roaming and marking territory, for example. They were in fact my love slaves, totally at my mercy and definitely not free. And I enslaved myself by my attachment to them. Now, when anyone tells me they are thinking of buying or adopting a cat or dog, I ask them, how would you like to be the love slave of a [civilized] human rather than free to be your own animal self?