Beginning writing students often struggle with writing, following conversational patterns rather than the more formal style of written and professional language. This is often because they have not had much exposure to written discourse so that their primary models for language come from conversation, which is informal and not as strict with grammar. While each profession has its own unique style, as students develop their professional voice in writing, there are additional traits that can further improve their writing style.

Clarity

For every writer in any discipline, clarity is a must. While each profession has its own guidelines and style of writing, every profession aims for clarity in language and usage, in organization, and in presentation. Students may be tempted to load their writing with complex vocabulary. Instead, writers must consider the audience and purpose for the writing, and choose vocabulary appropriate to both. It is also important to be consistent in style. This sentence mixes simple language with a complex vocabulary word with the result that the sentence feels flawed:

My favorite soporific is hot chocolate.

While the word "soporific" is used correctly according to its definition, it stands out in the sentence because the other words use a simpler diction. The following sentence uses the word "soporific" in a context more appropriate to its meaning:

For patients with insomnia, doctors may recommend a mild soporific like chamomile tea or hot chocolate before bedtime rather than over-the-counter supplements like melatonin and diphenhydramine or prescription sedatives such as triazolam, lorazepam, or temazepam.

Take advantage of short words.

Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big things--night and day love and hate, war and peace, and life and death. Big words at times seem strange to the eye and the ear and the mind and the heart. Small words are the ones we seem to have known from the time we were born, like the hearth fire that warms the home.

Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like the dawn that greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and terse like the dart and sting of a bee. (Lederer)

Conciseness

William Zinsser argues that good writers must "strip" their sentences of unnecessary words (Zinsser 7). When revising, remove as many words as possible without changing the meaning, losing details, or becoming incoherent.

Sentence Length

Good writers vary their sentence length, but not in an arbitrary way. The best writers think about how the rhythm of sentences can add meaning to their writing. In the following example, Joan Didion uses sentence length to illustrate both the movement of the Santa Ana wind and its effect on people by using sentences of varied length.

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior. (Didion)

The second sentence mimics the movement of the Santa Ana wind through the countryside by its length and the use of participles (the words ending in ing). The short sentences mimic the sense of irritability that people feel: "The baby frets. The maid sulks." By ending those sentences with harsh sounding words, the sense of iritability is intensified.

Parallelism

A useful technique for writers is the incorporation of parallelism. Both Lederer and Didion use this in the long sentences they have written. The result is that, when reading or hearing the sentence, it feels much shorter.

Short words are
bright like sparks that glow in the night,
prompt like the dawn that greets the day,
sharp like the blade of a knife,
hot like salt tears that scald the cheek,
quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and
terse like the dart and sting of a bee. (Lederer)

There is
something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon,
some unnatural stillness,
some tension.

What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast
whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes,
blowing up sand storms out along Route 66,
drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. (Didion)