The question of whether you should use contractions in formal academic writing is like asking if you should wear a swimsuit to a party – it depends on the type of party. Is it a pool party or a fancy dinner? That is where your answer lies. People use contractions both orally and in writing. They are so common that movies and books often try to make the characters look old-fashioned or strange by never using contractions. It`s a bit silly because English speakers have been using contractions for centuries – but not always the same ones we use today. However, if you`re writing an academic paper or something else formal, you may want to avoid contractions. If you`re writing for school, it may be a good idea to ask your teacher if the contractions are okay. I`m a fanfiction writer and I was recently told that it was wrong to use contractions in the narrative (where a character doesn`t speak specifically in the dialogues) when I read an article for someone and commented that the absence of contractions made the sentences a little too long and unnatural. Since then, I`ve tried to apply this to my own work, and I`m becoming more and more unhappy because my writing now seems abnormally stunted. It almost looks like I learned the language from a book, with all its rules, like a foreign language, which is not the case. I agree not to use contractions if the sentence always flows naturally from the tongue and side, but is it acceptable to use them if the sentence just seems wrong? All contractions contain a punctuation mark that looks like this: Contractions are also the norm in emails and other informal conversation letters. In prose intended for the general public, they are expected to be used wisely. In his book “On Writing Well,” William Zinsser advised, “.
trust your ear and instinct. . Your style will be warmer and more true to your personality if you use contractions like “I will” and “will not do it” and “may” when they fit comfortably into what you [I see what you did there, Mr. Zinsser]. To get an idea of the strangeness of not using contractions, write a scene with the next prompt without using a single contraction. Most of us are not Hemingway, Samuel Beckett or Dr. Seuss, and we are aiming for a more or less transparent style – one that (as good baseball umpires say) is not noticed. And this also extends to the use of contractions. Here is a list of contractions we found in the literary canon. 3. In legal writings, a number of judges use contractions in decisions, but the general meaning is that they should be avoided in pleadings. On the Lawyerist blog, Matthew Salzwedel quotes the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who calls the contractions of vulgarism a “market” and warns lawyers that judges might consider them “an affront to the dignity of the court.” .
And judges who are not offended will not understand your brief or vote for your case, not even more willingly. (Salzwedel notes, “Maybe only Judge Scalia can get away with using a contraction – `don`t do` – when he orders lawyers not to use contractions like `don`t `not`)) I`m concerned about the suggestion that contractions are sloppy. That`s because I rarely write a paragraph without it. Since I started this blog post, I`ve already used four contractions: behold, it is, would not be, and it is. You may think that contractions cannot be used in the canons of literature, but this conversational approach appears in literary masterpieces, from Beowulf to Moby Dick and Great Expectations to Ulysses, modern bestsellers, and more (see examples below). Most English teachers say that contractions should never be used in writing, at least not in formal writing (see here, here and here). Having to write many articles of 500 and 1000 words for disciplinary action. I must say that the use of contractions can be detrimental to their purpose.
However, you mentioned something in your message that I hear a lot. “Write for the reader.” This statement is very benign at first, but when you think about the context, it becomes more of a problem. If I continue to write a more talkative tone and add more “slang” language to my writing and speaking. I then begin to manage my communication skills instead of managing them. If we continue to use our language, our overall communication style will increase and have a more even flow. I also like the mental challenge of creating that sentence with “don`t want, shouldn`t.” The use of contractions in formal writing – such as scientific articles, resumes, essays, or publications – is often frowned upon because some people believe that contractions weaken a statement or make writing too casual to the situation. But is this true? It can be difficult to decipher whether or not the use of contractions is acceptable when writing a more formal piece. However, contractions are often very useful, even in professional writing, and they can even contribute to the overall style and format of the text. In English, there are a fairly small number of contractions, and they are all made up of common words. Here are some of the contractions you`ll see the most: I really enjoy using contractions and tend to incorporate them into emails and other informal fonts. However, I avoid them in research papers and formal reports, and with one exception, I don`t use contractions when writing books.
The only contractions that appear are in quotation marks. Even if you follow this advice, there is a lot of leeway. For two books I have on my Kindle — “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand, an outstanding popular historian and journalist, and “These Truths” by Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian who writes for a general audience — I calculated the percentage of times each writer used and did not use the usual contractions “was not” and “not.” Unsurprisingly (given the respective context and audience of the authors), Hillenbrand went with a contraction in 87% of cases, Lepore less than 40. I use contractions to communicate a fluid and simple style. As a writer, I want you, the reader, to feel that I am speaking to you and that words come easily. I do not want to communicate formally with you. (In this sentence, I used “do not do” rather than underscore.) You may have noticed that the word is not a little different from other contractions. This means that we will not, even if the word will is not there. This is because won`t is based on a much older form of the word will.
Although the word changed, the contraction remained the same! Although I have “disabled” the option to check contractions in my Microsoft software, I just checked it again to help me use fewer contractions. .