{"id":110,"date":"2020-09-21T18:48:38","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T22:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/chapter\/5-7-breaking-rules-with-a-purpose\/"},"modified":"2023-09-28T15:22:56","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T19:22:56","slug":"5-7-breaking-rules-with-a-purpose","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/chapter\/5-7-breaking-rules-with-a-purpose\/","title":{"raw":"5.7 Breaking Rules (With a Purpose)","rendered":"5.7 Breaking Rules (With a Purpose)"},"content":{"raw":"Students often come to university having learned a number of rules about academic writing (or maybe about \u201cwriting\u201d in general). Some of the ones we hear students repeat most frequently are the following:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Never use \u201cI\u201d in academic writing.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Never start a sentence with \u201cbecause.\u201d<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Paragraphs must have at least three sentences.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Sentence fragments are wrong.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Don\u2019t use slang or colloquial language in an essay. Be formal.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nYet, students who pay attention to the texts they are assigned to read for their classes readily notice that professional writers and academic writers violate these so-called \u201crules\u201d in work that is published and highly respected. A famous scholar who writes about Shakespeare started a book with the sentence \u201cI began with the desire to speak with the dead.\u201d[footnote]Stephen Greenblatt, <em>Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England <\/em>(University of California Press, 1988), 1.[\/footnote] <em>An important linguist has titled a book about online language <a href=\"https:\/\/gretchenmcculloch.com\/book\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Because Internet<\/a><\/em>.[footnote]Gretchen McCulloch, <em>Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language <\/em>(Riverhead Books, 2019.[\/footnote] Journalists writing for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The New Yorker<\/em><\/a> produce paragraphs as short as one sentence long. Advertisers and politicians make frequent, effective use of sentence fragments: \u201cReal change\u201d; \u201cOne nation, one flag, one leader\u201d; \u201cA Canada that works.\u201d And one of the most important articles published on English renaissance drama features as part of its title the colloquial phrase \u201cNobody\u2019s perfect\u201d (Stephen Orgel).[footnote]Stephen Orgel, \u201cNobody\u2019s Perfect: Or, Why Did the English Stage Take Boys for Women?,\u201d <em>South Atlantic Quarterly <\/em>88, no. 1 (1989): 7-29.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s use as an example an academic text that breaks a number of commonly taught rules: Andrea Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmothers<\/a>,\u201d[footnote]Andrea Riley-Mukavetz, \u201cDeveloping a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmother,\u201d <em>College Composition and Communication <\/em>71, no. 4 (2020): 545-565,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723\">library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723<\/a>.[\/footnote] which was published in one of the most important academic journals in the field of writing studies, <a href=\"https:\/\/cccc.ncte.org\/cccc\/ccc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>College Composition and Communication<\/em><\/a>. The first sentence of Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s piece is \u201cI come to you with a good heart.\u201d The author then writes a paragraph about her experiences of ophidiophobia (the technical term for a fear of snakes)\u2014but she does so through vivid descriptions of moments from her childhood. Only a bit later in her essay does she make explicit how this material connects to the goals of the article:\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">These stories are snake stories and are used to theorize a relational scholarly practice that draws from the decolonial option in cultural and Indigenous rhetorics. By reflecting on the complicated and somewhat obsessive relationship to snakes, I articulate a relationship to land-based practices and land-based methodologies in my writing. It is easy to write joyfully about the practices that are easy and uncomplicated (are there practices that are easy and uncomplicated?), but what about the practices that scare us, challenge us, leave us with few answers or unarticulated meanings? Like my relationship with snakes, I am, in fact, somewhat obsessed with the concept of relationality\u2014a core practice and worldview that guides and frames my orientation to knowledge making.[footnote]Riley-Mukavetz, \"Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice,\" 546.[\/footnote]<\/div><\/blockquote>\r\nThis author uses first-person voice (I statements). She includes a number of grammatically simple sentences (as when she describes that in response to seeing a snake, \u201cI retreat indoors\u201d). Some of her phrasing is colloquial\u2014the phrase in parentheses that interrupts one of the sentences above sounds like speech, doesn\u2019t it? And at times she uses some slangy terms, for example, sharing that this article emerged from the \u201cB-sides\u201d of her PhD thesis. And, most importantly, she links her argument to stories, telling about her personal experiences including details about her childhood, her family members, and her dreams in lucid (and not at all formal-sounding) sentences. None of this rule-breaking makes Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s article seem un-academic; indeed, her ability to shift between very thoughtful analysis of complex and technical concepts (like \u201cthe subfield of cultural rhetorics\u201d and \u201crelational scholarly practice\u201d) and vivid personal narratives\u2014as well as between long, complex sentences and short, punchy ones\u2014results in an effective, memorable, and powerful scholarly argument.\r\n\r\nWhen a writer violates rules for no apparent reason, we may say that what we\u2019re seeing is an error. But academic writers can make strategic choices to break what are seen as the rules of academic writing to create interesting effects\u2014to get readers\u2019 attention or to get an audience to think about a complex topic from a new perspective or even to be playful.\r\n\r\nIn your own writing, think about the results you might get if you choose to break a rule. Will you lose credibility if you use an obscenity in the first sentence of your essay, or will that deliberate inclusion of an unexpected and shocking word more strongly communicate your idea? (Philosopher <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harry_Frankfurt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harry G. Frankfurt<\/a> could have titled his book length study <em>Miscommunication and Misrepresentation in the Modern World<\/em>, but instead he called it <a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/hardcover\/9780691122946\/on-bullshit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>On Bullshit<\/em><\/a>.) Is writing a sentence or two in an English essay in another language a sign that you don\u2019t know how to write, or might it help readers see that you have authority to speak about a topic closely linked to people who speak that language. (Rhetorician <a href=\"https:\/\/english.wsu.edu\/victor-villanueva\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victor Villanueva<\/a> includes passages of poetry and of Spanish in an English-language article about scholarly writing to explore how a writer\u2019s experience of their skin colour and racial identity affects their relationship to academic discourse.[footnote]Victor Villanueva, \u201cMemoria is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourse of Color,\u201d <em>College English <\/em>67, no. 1 (2004): 9-19. [reprinted in <em>Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader, <\/em>3rd ed. (NCTE, 2011), 567-577.[\/footnote]) Sometimes when you are working on a piece of academic writing, you will want to follow the \u201crules\u201d and play it safe\u2014but try to keep in mind that writers create interesting results when they thoughtfully go beyond what is expected.","rendered":"<p>Students often come to university having learned a number of rules about academic writing (or maybe about \u201cwriting\u201d in general). Some of the ones we hear students repeat most frequently are the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Never use \u201cI\u201d in academic writing.<\/li>\n<li>Never start a sentence with \u201cbecause.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Paragraphs must have at least three sentences.<\/li>\n<li>Sentence fragments are wrong.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t use slang or colloquial language in an essay. Be formal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yet, students who pay attention to the texts they are assigned to read for their classes readily notice that professional writers and academic writers violate these so-called \u201crules\u201d in work that is published and highly respected. A famous scholar who writes about Shakespeare started a book with the sentence \u201cI began with the desire to speak with the dead.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (University of California Press, 1988), 1.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-1\" href=\"#footnote-110-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a> <em>An important linguist has titled a book about online language <a href=\"https:\/\/gretchenmcculloch.com\/book\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Because Internet<\/a><\/em>.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (Riverhead Books, 2019.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-2\" href=\"#footnote-110-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a> Journalists writing for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The New Yorker<\/em><\/a> produce paragraphs as short as one sentence long. Advertisers and politicians make frequent, effective use of sentence fragments: \u201cReal change\u201d; \u201cOne nation, one flag, one leader\u201d; \u201cA Canada that works.\u201d And one of the most important articles published on English renaissance drama features as part of its title the colloquial phrase \u201cNobody\u2019s perfect\u201d (Stephen Orgel).<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Stephen Orgel, \u201cNobody\u2019s Perfect: Or, Why Did the English Stage Take Boys for Women?,\u201d South Atlantic Quarterly 88, no. 1 (1989): 7-29.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-3\" href=\"#footnote-110-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s use as an example an academic text that breaks a number of commonly taught rules: Andrea Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmothers<\/a>,\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Andrea Riley-Mukavetz, \u201cDeveloping a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmother,\u201d College Composition and Communication 71, no. 4 (2020): 545-565,\u00a0library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-4\" href=\"#footnote-110-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a> which was published in one of the most important academic journals in the field of writing studies, <a href=\"https:\/\/cccc.ncte.org\/cccc\/ccc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>College Composition and Communication<\/em><\/a>. The first sentence of Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s piece is \u201cI come to you with a good heart.\u201d The author then writes a paragraph about her experiences of ophidiophobia (the technical term for a fear of snakes)\u2014but she does so through vivid descriptions of moments from her childhood. Only a bit later in her essay does she make explicit how this material connects to the goals of the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"textbox\">These stories are snake stories and are used to theorize a relational scholarly practice that draws from the decolonial option in cultural and Indigenous rhetorics. By reflecting on the complicated and somewhat obsessive relationship to snakes, I articulate a relationship to land-based practices and land-based methodologies in my writing. It is easy to write joyfully about the practices that are easy and uncomplicated (are there practices that are easy and uncomplicated?), but what about the practices that scare us, challenge us, leave us with few answers or unarticulated meanings? Like my relationship with snakes, I am, in fact, somewhat obsessed with the concept of relationality\u2014a core practice and worldview that guides and frames my orientation to knowledge making.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Riley-Mukavetz, &quot;Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice,&quot; 546.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-5\" href=\"#footnote-110-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This author uses first-person voice (I statements). She includes a number of grammatically simple sentences (as when she describes that in response to seeing a snake, \u201cI retreat indoors\u201d). Some of her phrasing is colloquial\u2014the phrase in parentheses that interrupts one of the sentences above sounds like speech, doesn\u2019t it? And at times she uses some slangy terms, for example, sharing that this article emerged from the \u201cB-sides\u201d of her PhD thesis. And, most importantly, she links her argument to stories, telling about her personal experiences including details about her childhood, her family members, and her dreams in lucid (and not at all formal-sounding) sentences. None of this rule-breaking makes Riley-Mukavetz\u2019s article seem un-academic; indeed, her ability to shift between very thoughtful analysis of complex and technical concepts (like \u201cthe subfield of cultural rhetorics\u201d and \u201crelational scholarly practice\u201d) and vivid personal narratives\u2014as well as between long, complex sentences and short, punchy ones\u2014results in an effective, memorable, and powerful scholarly argument.<\/p>\n<p>When a writer violates rules for no apparent reason, we may say that what we\u2019re seeing is an error. But academic writers can make strategic choices to break what are seen as the rules of academic writing to create interesting effects\u2014to get readers\u2019 attention or to get an audience to think about a complex topic from a new perspective or even to be playful.<\/p>\n<p>In your own writing, think about the results you might get if you choose to break a rule. Will you lose credibility if you use an obscenity in the first sentence of your essay, or will that deliberate inclusion of an unexpected and shocking word more strongly communicate your idea? (Philosopher <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harry_Frankfurt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harry G. Frankfurt<\/a> could have titled his book length study <em>Miscommunication and Misrepresentation in the Modern World<\/em>, but instead he called it <a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/hardcover\/9780691122946\/on-bullshit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>On Bullshit<\/em><\/a>.) Is writing a sentence or two in an English essay in another language a sign that you don\u2019t know how to write, or might it help readers see that you have authority to speak about a topic closely linked to people who speak that language. (Rhetorician <a href=\"https:\/\/english.wsu.edu\/victor-villanueva\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victor Villanueva<\/a> includes passages of poetry and of Spanish in an English-language article about scholarly writing to explore how a writer\u2019s experience of their skin colour and racial identity affects their relationship to academic discourse.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Victor Villanueva, \u201cMemoria is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourse of Color,\u201d College English 67, no. 1 (2004): 9-19. [reprinted in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader, 3rd ed. (NCTE, 2011), 567-577.\" id=\"return-footnote-110-6\" href=\"#footnote-110-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a>) Sometimes when you are working on a piece of academic writing, you will want to follow the \u201crules\u201d and play it safe\u2014but try to keep in mind that writers create interesting results when they thoughtfully go beyond what is expected.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-110-1\">Stephen Greenblatt, <em>Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England <\/em>(University of California Press, 1988), 1. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-110-2\">Gretchen McCulloch, <em>Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language <\/em>(Riverhead Books, 2019. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-110-3\">Stephen Orgel, \u201cNobody\u2019s Perfect: Or, Why Did the English Stage Take Boys for Women?,\u201d <em>South Atlantic Quarterly <\/em>88, no. 1 (1989): 7-29. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-110-4\">Andrea Riley-Mukavetz, \u201cDeveloping a Relational Scholarly Practice: Snakes, Dreams, and Grandmother,\u201d <em>College Composition and Communication <\/em>71, no. 4 (2020): 545-565,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723\">library.ncte.org\/journals\/ccc\/issues\/v71-4\/30723<\/a>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-110-5\">Riley-Mukavetz, \"Developing a Relational Scholarly Practice,\" 546. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-110-6\">Victor Villanueva, \u201cMemoria is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourse of Color,\u201d <em>College English <\/em>67, no. 1 (2004): 9-19. [reprinted in <em>Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader, <\/em>3rd ed. (NCTE, 2011), 567-577. <a href=\"#return-footnote-110-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":103,"menu_order":7,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["erin-kelly","sara-humphreys","natalie-boldt","nancy-ami"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[50],"contributor":[62,63,64,61],"license":[],"class_list":["post-110","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless","contributor-erin-kelly","contributor-nancy-ami","contributor-natalie-boldt","contributor-sara-humphreys"],"part":97,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/revisions\/532"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/97"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/110\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/whywriteguide2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}