Official Style: Ain’t No Style o’ Mine?

By Branden Schultz

Official Style catches a lot of flak for being full of sentences crammed with too many words, phrases, and terms (half of which are incomprehensibly complicated), and little time to breathe in between, let alone process the information you’re cramming down your throat. The style gets discredited for being exhausting, and at times downright unhelpful to its audience. To make things worse, sometimes the topic isn’t even complicated- but how the author handles it sure is. However, this style is not the useless mountain of garbage that some decry it to be. No, official style can be used to raise one's professional appearance- to raise their persuasiveness and eloquently raise points in ways that the plain and creative styles would not be able to. The truth is that the official style is not the enemy- it is a simple tool that is useful in the right contexts, and has pitfalls and tropes that its writers may fall into, just like any other style .

            The context of a text changes so many aspects of its quality- how can a text be judged if its: effective, clear, persuasive, informative, entertaining, enjoyable, popular, or credible, without understanding why, when, and where it was written for whom? Is the text a persuasive essay asking the city to install more benches, or a fictional short story of a cat trying to find its milk? Will the President of the United States be reading this, or a Kindergartener? In 1801, or 2016? Obviously, the tone, word choice, and exact subject matter will change depending on the answers to each of these questions. Without context, there is no answer to the quality of a text. There may be an inherent personal bias towards a specific style, but this is not an objective assessment of the text’s value.

            But it’s easier to believe it when you see it, I know. So let’s look at an example. Fundamental Undemocratic Values in Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers: How to Make Upper Secondary School Students More Self-aware of Their Fundamental Democratic Values by Sebastian Forsman, a student at the Stockholm University, shows an effective use of the style. And once again, the context behind this text shows why it is an effective use of the official style.  Forsman wrote this to the administrators of the English department at Stockholm University. He hoped that the thesis paper would convince the administrators to add Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers to the department’s list of required books for students. Forsman wanted to raise awareness of fundamental democratic values within the student body. His audience (the administrators) is a busy, intelligent group. Stockholm University has an acceptance rate of only 24%- this is not an easily accessible university. They need a compelling argument to change the school's curriculum- a simple “please and thank you” approach just won’t do. Also, this is a group of people that Forsman is writing for- they have separate ideologies and beliefs that must all be appeased. But it is also a small group of people, meaning that Forsman is not reaching for wide reaching circulation, but instead is trying to convince a specific and niche audience. The more detail that Forsman can elaborate on quickly and concisely, the better.

Admittedly, I was hesitant about the title’s length at first. With twenty-three (23) words, I thought it was a sign of excessively worded passages to come. But the title is perfect for Forsman’s audience, because it is exactly what his argument is. Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers stresses undemocratic values that upper secondary students should be aware of, to raise their understanding of the democratic values that should be preserved. What is the best way to raise the understanding? Add Starship Troopers to the school’s curriculum. ‘Fundamental’ is used twice in the title alone, creating repetition and stressing the absolute necessity of the values that Forsman touches on throughout the paper. Even the title is employing devices to help persuade his audience.

In the paper itself, Forsman speaks plainly, despite using prepositions and stringing clauses together within one sentence. He also maintains a clear organization throughout his thesis, helping the reader maintain a sense of direction while reading the piece, and also helping navigate through it for specific details- exactly what his intended audience would want. There is a table of contents, there are headers, and quotes receive their own margins for emphasis. The thesis paper looks incredibly presentable and official, again catering to his audience’s expectations. Complicated terms are given their own sections. They are broken down and explained, before being used seamlessly to expand on the importance of his thesis paper- why Starship Troopers should be part of the curriculum.

Forsman also speaks in a sequential manner. He relies on previous elaborations to carry new arguments ahead. Forsman writes, “Since Starship Troopers has been chosen as the teaching material to achieve the aims above, the first step would be to analyze its didactic potential. This concept is borrowed from Malin Alkestrand and her doctoral thesis on how fantasy novels could be used to problematize fundamental values in school (67-76)” (Forsman 11). A lot of information is conveyed in just these two sentences. “Since Starship Troopers has been chosen,” emphasizes that this novel specifically will “achieve the aims above,”. Here, Forsman calls back to pre-listed aims of his article, which he examined earlier. Finally, Forsman moves forward, stating “the first step would be to analyze its didactic potential.” Forsman, knowing that ‘didactic potential’ is likely a foreign or otherwise complicated concept, he elaborates on the concept’s origin (and its creator’s credibility in one concise move). The rest of Forsman’s paper is written in a similarly sequential matter- relying on past information to move forward.

Forsman’s paper has a Gunning Fog Index of 15.5, and a Flesch Reading Ease Score of 39.28. Each word has about 5 characters to it, while each sentence has about 23-24 words to it, on average. These are longer sentences (ironically each being about the same length as his title), but the language inside is only complicated if you haven’t read Forsman's earlier passages- in no small part due to his sequential style of elaboration.

In short, don’t hate the game, hate the player. Words never wanted to be complicated; they can’t want anything. They’re words. Instead, look at the author. Look at their purpose in reading. And look at who they’re writing to. Understand where they came from, and what they tried to make of their text. And then, stop hating the player. You just might not have been the original audience, and that same original audience might have thought that it was one hell of a read. There’s a time and place for everything, and even though official style isn’t the style of mine,  it is a style of mine.