Page 97 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

96 How to write critical essays
bonus. What all insist upon is a style which shows them how
much you know and what you think.

Clarity

USE FAMILIAR WORDS

Good criticism of literature does not itself strain to sound
literary. If you try to use unfamiliar words merely to sound
sophisticated, you will just distract yourself from the task of
making your meaning clear. Such pretentiousness may even
tempt you to use words whose precise meaning you do not
know. Then you risk writing gibberish.
Of course, you should aim for a gradually broadening
vocabulary: the wider the range of terms from which you can
choose, the more likely you are to find those that will define
your point with maximal economy, clarity and precision.
Moreover, a relatively complex language may be necessary even
to think certain ideas. Nevertheless, longer, less familiar words
chosen just for their length or obtrusive learnedness will merely
slow pace and muffle thought. Compare these alternative
versions of the same point:
The play commences by making manifest the ruminations of
its hero.

The play starts by telling us what its hero thinks.
The latter is far more likely to help writer and reader into a real
curiosity about whether the claim is accurate and relevant.
Here are two more examples of pompous circumlocution,
each followed by a more direct paraphrase:
Shakespeare desires in the first scene of A Winter’s Tale to
demonstrate that Leontes is perusing his wife’s social
gestures towards their guest with close attention and some
alarm at the possibility of sexual impropriety.
Shakespeare means in the first scene of A Winter’s Tale to
show that Leontes is anxiously watching his wife’s behaviour
towards their guest. Already he suspects an affair.