Elegance
Prose may be clear, but often lacks creativity and does not leave a lasting impression. Institutional prose can be so simplistic that it can quickly become repetitive and boring. However, just a bit of class and elegance can make the difference between forgettable and unforgettable prose. Using the ideas of elegance will make the difference between simply knowing the ideas and being able to use them.
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Balance and Symmetry
While coordination alone will suffice to turn a plain sentence into a work of satisfying and rhythmic movement, a skillful writer can enhance the rhythm and grace of coordination with a few principles. According to Joseph M. Williams, "a coordinate series will move more gracefully if each succeeding coordinate element is longer than the one before it."
For emphasis, use the following coorelative conjunctions:
both X and Y
not only X but also Y
neither X nor Y
i.e The national significance of an ethnic minority depends upon a sufficiently and deep historical identity that makes it not only impossible for the majority to absorb the minority but inevitable that the minority will both maintain its identity and transmit its heritage.
The words in bold break the sentence into comparable parts and create a balance. If this balancing is done consciously, the writing can be made more elegant. The strongest kind of balance parallels both grammar and meaning. This effect can also be achieved if parts of a sentence are balanced when they are not coordinated. For example, if a subject is balanced against an object or a direct object is balanced against the object of a preposition. However, if balance is used too often, it can become monotonous, so balance is best used to give emphasis to a point, conclude, or give prose a defined shape.
To add rhetorical elegance to a coordination, carefully balance the parts of clauses and phrases against each other.
Joseph M. Williams put it best when he stated: "Like every other artful device, these balanced phrases and clauses can eventually become self-defeating - or at least monotonously arch. But if you use them unobtrusively when you want to emphasize an important point or conclude the line of an argument, you can give your prose a shape and a cadence that most ordinary writing lacks."
Emphasis and Rhythm
Emphasis is directly related to the way a writer ends a sentence. For instance, moving the most important information to the end of a sentence takes advantage of the natural emphasis we hear in our ear, and thus stresses the meaning. A sentence will seem unfinished if ended with non-dominant words. A few principles to keep in mind:
1. Avoid leaving a sentence ending with a preposition. These are very lightweight parts of speech.
2. Choose a verb or noun over adjectives and adverbs for the end of a sentence, as these are the better choice for emphasis.
3. To end with a climactic thump, use a nominalization at the end of a sentence because they are heaviest and most emphatic.
For example, the use of the words “liberation” and “rescue” in a passage by Winston Churchill leaves the reader with a greater impact than if he had simply written "liberate."
Length and Rhythm
Length is important when writing both ordinary prose and artful prose. In most ordinary prose writing, sentence length is not a prominent device for impact. Ordinary prose relies on how sentences flow, and whether or not each sentence comes off as dull or mundane. Regular prose should not contain sentences of the same length, but should also not be too long or too short, because the prose can easily become boring. However, length can create different moods, such as those of paramount importance or abrupt confidence, so it is used extensively in artful prose.
In artful prose, writers deliberately control the length to strike a note of urgency, for terse certainty, or fire. (Joseph M. Williams)
Metaphor
To bring pleasure to reading, figures of speech such as metaphors are added because writing with precision, drive, balance, and measure is satisfying for giving information, but often lacks excitement and pleasure. Using metaphors adds life to not only poetic, reflective, or polemical writing, but also to writing done by historians, biologists, philosophers, physicists, etc.
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White suggest that figures of speech, such as the metaphor, be used in moderation. Strunk & White warn that using metaphors in "rapid fire" succession can be confusing for readers, not informative.
