Mike Hannay en J. Lachlan Mackenzie - Effective Writing in English

Part 1 The process of writing

order. A general rule of thumb, then, is to use only statements in your argued text. In the following subsections, we will briefly consider where it is appro priate in argued texts to deviate from this rule. We will consider questions and orders, both of which have their rightful place in argued text, and excla mations, which do not. 1.4.1 The use of questions, orders and exclamations When they occur in argued text, questions serve above all to introduce sec tions of argument. It is as though you were asking yourself a question, which you then go on to answer. This technique is particularly appropriate if the question is one that your reader may be expected to be wondering about at that particular moment. An example would be where you have presented a number of proposals, each of which will cost money. You may then begin the next paragraph, which will deal with the funding of the proposals, with a question like the following: This is an attractive alternative to a statement like These proposals have a number of financial consequences . Orders are only used in argued texts to introduce examples. Even though they have the form of an order, they are understood as invitations. A particu larly frequent expression, used to introduce a point to which you wish to give especial emphasis, is Note that … Here are a few examples of such ‘orders’: Consider the following examples. Compare the situation in France, where the taxes on cigarettes and alcoholic beverages are much lower. Note that this point can already be found in the works of Aristotle. Exclamations should be used very sparingly in written texts. The strength of feeling that they voice should rather be expressed lexically, i.e. by choosing words that reflect your horror, pleasure, etc. The following exclamation, for example, can easily be reformulated as a powerful statement: What needless suffering to inflict on innocent animals! It is a shame that such needless suffering should be inflicted on innocent animals. What now are the financial consequences of these proposals?

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