The link between grammar and morality also fostered intense anxiety about correctness that continues to this day. A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence. The modifiers work at different levels of abstraction and add to the sentence's texture. Students should practice writing cumulative descriptions of objects and events in single sentences, which will make style and content more complex simultaneously. This bibliographic essay discusses works on literary style and stylistics, the history of English prose style, theories of style, teaching the analysis of prose style, and teaching students how to improve their writing style.
Most amateurs begin an essay by stating their purpose, giving background, or telling results.
Professionals hold those moves in reserve. Such openings dramatize the subject and are brief. Professionals use indirection, drop hints or cite experts in order to contradict them, and use oblique quotations, whereas amateurs attempt to be direct. Amateurs use rhetorical questions and truisms, while professionals rarely do. But when these professional strategies are pointed out, student amateurs learn them quickly.