Writing Conventions
Writing Conventions
The term convention is used to describe general agreement on or acceptance of certain practices. It's an interesting term, lying somewhere between a guideline and a rule. It is important to remember that although grammar is most certainly one aspect of convention, convention is much more than this.
Like fashion, conventions can change over time. Conventions change from social environment to social environment. Conventions change depending upon the type of publication in which the work in question will appear. Conventions are related to usage, but they are also related to the voice of the text and are affected by both at the same time.
Convention may be a difficult thing to fully define, but luckily it's not a difficult thing to follow. This is in part because we have so many resources to turn to when writing. But this is also because we tend to subconsciously learn all of this stuff anyway in our day-to-day lives by reading and consuming media. The challenge is becoming aware of it and incorporating it into editing and writing!
We said it before, but it bears repeating: convention includes things like grammar and usage, but it should not be defined by them. Let's talk about conventions in a more strict sense to begin with, and then we'll move to the more general.
If you are writing for a specific publication, and for years and years this particular publication has been written a certain way (voice), and has punctuated things a certain way (grammar), and has developed a unique vocabulary (usage), all those things will inform the general conventions you follow when writing for that particular publication. If the publication requires the use of a serial comma (or does not), then this can be described as a convention. If it requires that you write in a certain voice, then this can be described as a convention. If all of their articles follow a certain style of formatting, then this can be described as a convention.
It is easy to follow specific conventions because the publisher (or the person for whom you are editing) normally provides you with a style guide to follow. In fact, these very style guides are normally based, at least in part, on other style guides already in existence, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA Handbook.
But we need to go beyond this. For example, no matter which publisher the manuscript is going to, there is a certain level of language that will be expected from the author. The author will have to know what type of phrasing to avoid. He or she will have to know whether the active or passive voice should be employed. The author may even need to know which grammatical rules are often broken for the sake of convention, and which conventions people assume are grammatical rules.
Since we've covered grammar and spelling, we want to look at some other conventions you'll run into. We've identified five general conventions that we think deserve special attention. Let's go through them one by one and see what's expected of editors and writers.
We generally expect writing to be fairly direct. This is probably the best place to begin our discussion of the various major types of conventions. Depending upon where you are in the world, or what field you are writing in, the writing you produce or edit will be expected to be relatively direct. People expect writing to be direct because people need to feel like there is a purpose to what they are reading.
And here's where we begin to dig into the ambiguities of conventions. Nonfiction needs to be direct, but some disciplines require things to be more direct than others. A journal article about an experiment done in a laboratory requires precise language with no tolerance for uncertainty. An article discussing literary theory can play with language and ask rhetorical questions. It will still be expected to contribute to the academic discussion of literary theory, but it's not expected to do so in the same manner as a scientific article would be expected to report its findings.
This can vary from country to country or region to region. Some universities and publishers in some parts of the world have different expectations about writing than others. None of these differences are "right" or "wrong" in terms of grammar. It's always wrong to omit the final punctuation of a sentence. But the level of directness of your writing corresponds to what it is you are writing and for whom you are writing.
Fiction is obviously absolved of this responsibility, but generally speaking, almost every other form of writing must be as objective as possible. Research papers, dissertations, journal articles, and almost every academic piece of writing you run across are expected to be objective. Biographies, autobiographies, and historical texts come under special scrutiny because of the possible charge of bias. If an author doesn't make his or her objectivity plain, then there is a risk of ruining his or her credibility.
Some authors intentionally write subjectively. Many political pundits skillfully weave their own opinions into their prose. Editorials in newspapers were designed to do this very thing. It's opinion-based prose, after all. Again, it's often up to the editor to determine where more objectivity is needed and where authors are allowed to go out on a limb and provide their own subjective opinion. However, while it's sometimes permissible for an author to provide his or her own opinion, it is necessary for the author to back up this opinion with objective observations that verify this opinion.
When an author writes objectively, the author demonstrates that he or she has carefully considered the opinions of others when thinking about or discussing the topic at hand. If the purpose of the author's writing is to provide a new solution to a problem with already-existing solutions, the author must show that he or she has considered these solutions and objectively come to the conclusion that a different solution would be more efficient. If he or she has simply written off these other solutions without careful consideration, the reader has no motivation to consider the author's claims objectively.
We're going to begin by talking about point of view (POV). It provides us with a good launching point to discuss formal writing more generally. Formal writing often just means keeping things impersonal and objective (like we mentioned earlier). POV often establishes the formality of a piece of writing. If the words I, we, and you are used frequently, the writing is more informal. The more objective the writing, the more formal it is. (Note: This does not mean that all formal writing is objective.)
Formality means adhering to rules. It provides a rigid structure in which we can eliminate ambiguity and increase lines of communication. Now we've already established that the "rules" we're talking about when discussing convention are not hard and fast rules like their grammar brethren. Rather, they are rules that change with context. Formality is no different. It changes with context.
In some cases, such as when editing academic works or scientific works, humor is almost completely absent. There are no puns or side jokes. The purpose of the text is to inform as efficiently as possible. This type of writing requires precise language and vocabulary appropriate for the topic or discipline at hand. Certainly longer works of nonfiction out there on the shelves of bookstores have their share of jokes, puns, and uses of informal language. But such devices are used relatively infrequently and are deployed only where they serve a rhetorical function.
There is a great debate about short message service (SMS) language, or text speak (txtspk). Is it destroying language as we know it, or is it merely a more streamlined way to communicate? Character restrictions have necessarily forced individuals to reduce the number of characters in their writing without changing the meaning. In some cases, messages can sound rather . . . well, silly.
8 @ mcd's 4 lunch. omg it was so gr8.
However unlikely it is that we will be seeing this used in academic language anytime soon (or perhaps we should say accepted in academic language), teachers at high schools, colleges, and universities are increasingly using Twitter and Facebook in the classroom. They create Facebook pages for class projects and Twitter feeds for event announcements.
So while you'll want to keep your eyes out for SMS language in the things you edit, be aware that there are certain situations in which it might be useful and indeed beneficial to incorporate a little bit of pop culture language to illustrate your point. As with each of the conventions we've been discussing, it all depends on context.
We're almost afraid to write about "political correctness" simply because of the connotation the expression has taken on. So it's time we reclaim this often misused term. Politically correct speech aims to serve two basic functions:
To avoid unnecessarily offending members of a minority group
To increase the accuracy of language
It's the second item that many people aren't fully aware of. We now use police officer when we talk about any random officer. We say policeman when we refer to a male police officer, and we use policewoman to refer to a female police officer. Any gender-specific language should only be gender specific if it is a necessary part of the narrative.
For example, people often refer to a person's skin color when giving a description of them, but only if they are not white. The underlying assumption is that anyone that we would talk about in conversations must be white unless an exception is made. It is unlikely that someone would say, "Some white guy just robbed the convenience store!" If the culprit was white, the witness would no doubt say something like, "Some guy just robbed the convenience store!" But ask yourself, what if the culprit was black? In all likelihood, what would be the first thing that the witness would mention?
Being aware of these social biases helps you become a better editor. Let's look into some specific issues related to political correctness, or as we're calling it, writing that is socially aware.
Language of Race
With each passing year, we come to a better understanding of how our language can in fact perpetuate long-standing social perceptions about certain racial groups. As an editor, you have the unique opportunity to challenge authors to find new ways of expressing ideas that avoid ignorant and perpetually degrading assumptions about minority (and even majority) ethnic and racial groups.
It goes without saying that an editor should always avoid any directly racial language, including racial slurs. In other words, one should never call names. But there are times when even this can be a challenge. What if the author is not referring to someone by using a racial slur but is quoting another individual or talking about the word in an academic way? In a work of fiction, should a particular character's language or dialogue be censored if it is too offensive, even if that's the whole point of the character? (Stephen King often has racist characters that say deplorable things in his fiction, but King himself is quite obviously not a racist or a bigot.) An editor often must rely on his or her own judgment or contact the publisher or client to find out if there are any overarching standards to which he or she can refer.
There is also a host of terms that are patently racist or bigoted that some people are unaware of. There are, believe it or not, some people who don't know that saying that they were "jewed" by someone is offensive and that the term refers negatively to Jews. Many people are unaware that the term "gypped" is a racist term referring to Gypsies (specifically Romani Gypsies). These terms are sometimes even more dangerous than the run-of-the-mill bigoted language we frequently hear because people are often unaware of the damage they are causing by using these words.
Between those genuinely ignorant of the racist origin of these terms and those aware of their power are those who somehow think certain racist terms (such as the two mentioned in the previous paragraph) are somehow less offensive than others. As an editor, your message to authors should be clear: all terms that refer in a derogatory way to any ethnic group (even white Europeans, when this actually happens) are to be closely scrutinized and eschewed if the use of the term is likely to be hurtful to any group.
Language Related to Sex and Gender
We spoke about gender-specific terms a little bit a few slides ago, but it is worth returning to the topic. We said that unless one is referring to a specific police officer with an identifiable gender, one should never use "policeman" as a generic term for an officer of the law. However, this gets tricky when referring simply to one nondescript person. Think about the example we gave (when discussing race) about the convenience store robber. Now apply that same logic to men and women. Generally speaking, our default setting is on "man." We more readily assume, in conversations where the gender of the subject is unknown, that the subject is a man unless we are otherwise informed.
In order to combat this phenomenon, writers and editors have begun using "he or she" instead of assuming that a nondescript person is a man. While this is a perfectly acceptable solution, some find the use of "he or she" distracting, especially if it appears several times in one paragraph (or even in one sentence). As a result, some writers and editors (and some publications) have begun to allow for the use of the words "they" or "their" in "singular" form. Look at the following examples.
A person would have to be crazy not to get a cancer screening when they turn 50 years old.
The suspect, dressed in an all-black outfit and ski mask, was seen throwing their loot into the back of a pickup truck and driving away from the bank.
In those sentences, the words "they" and "their" refer to a nondescript individual. In the first sentence, the "person" is being used as a stand-in for any human being. In the second sentence, the true identity of the suspect is unknown, and saying "he" or "she" would be presumptive.
Not everyone agrees on the use of "they" and "their" in the singular, and so this convention may indeed be more unevenly distributed than many others. Nonetheless, these are issues that editors and writers face on a daily basis. As a result, the editor and the writer need to develop a consistent method of using terms such as these in order to clarify the written word.
Censorship
Everyone has that uncle or cousin who laments the days when things were "easier" and we didn't have to worry about "all this PC stuff." As we said before, political correctness and gender-neutral language have been given a bad rap because people misunderstand the function they actually serve in language. People find political correctness limiting when it is, in fact, liberating.
We limit ourselves to a smaller number of possibilities as long as this type of language persists in our society. Editors and authors who make it a priority to reduce the appearance of intentionally derogatory or accidentally exclusive language are actively trying to improve society and language by reducing individuals' exposure to these terms. The earlier individuals are exposed to neutral language, the earlier individuals learn the importance of thinking outside the box, a trait that is, without question, important in all walks of life.
However, our main goal should be to avoid offending without censoring. Censorship is a dangerous thing. While there are community standards that public media must allow for (another convention, by the way), we should avoid censoring, if at all possible. We allow nudity on television if it is not used in a sexual or bawdy manner (think of documentaries about cultures that don't wear clothing at all because they live in hotter climes). Newspapers will print letters to the editor even if they express sentiments that could be considered offensive, because ignoring bigotry is as dangerous as allowing it to happen unchecked.
We all agree that it's better to allow some "bad speech" than to limit speech altogether. Editors and writers are the ones on the front lines and deal with these decisions every day. It will be up to you to maximize the English language to its fullest potential while creating a virtual reading environment where everyone feels safe to read.
Do you think we're cheating on the fifth category here? Can conventions be miscellaneous? Yes! Sort of. There are things so ingrained within our linguistic or social history that we abide by them without even realizing it. If you are looking at a cartoon in the newspaper and steam rises from a character's red and increasingly swollen face, the implied meaning is that the character is angry. The red face is completely natural and happens when people get angry because of increased blood flow to the head. Cartoons exaggerate this, but it is something that actually happens. But what about the steam?
The steam is a convention. It's a visual cue for the reader to demonstrate an emotional state in a physical manner. And there's a good chance that if you showed that cartoon to any human being on any part of the globe, they would probably be able to guess its meaning without much difficulty. Literature is full of conventions shared by nearly every nation on Earth. For example, many fairy tales from England have the very same plot structure as myths from China, even when the tales themselves are wildly divergent.
We find conventions on every level. We find them on the global level, on the regional level, country by country, and city by city. We find them where we work, and we find them where we play. They determine how we communicate and with whom we can communicate. We often follow these rules without thinking about them. To become aware of these conventions is to provide yourself a unique view of writing and, indeed, society that very few people ever truly care to develop.
In this lesson, we've given you a good set of guidelines to follow when editing for writing conventions. Remember that conventions serve many purposes, and they can be made up of multiple sets of rules. Some conventions are more thorough than others, and some contradict the standards set by others. Paying attention to writing conventions is as important as paying attention to specific styles, so be on your guard. We've mainly covered the conventions that determine the voice of a piece, but keep in mind that conventions can be established for virtually any aspect of writing.
Last Updated: 09/29/2022