Lesson
Words and sentence shapes
Small choices accumulate into a voice the audience trusts or resists.
Learning goals
- Describe diction with a precise adjective and a quoted word.
- Explain how one syntactic pattern changes emphasis.
Explanation
Diction is never “good” in the abstract. Formal words can create distance. Plain words can create urgency. Jargon can include an expert audience and lock others out. Name the word and the social work it does.
Syntax is arrangement. Short sentences can land a warning. A long sentence can pile conditions until a policy looks careful—or until it looks like fog. Parallel structure can make unlike items feel like a set. Repetition can insist. None of these is automatically clever.
Key terms
- Diction. A writer’s choice of words, including formality, specificity, and connotation.
- Syntax. The arrangement of words and sentences, including length, order, and repetition.
Common mistakes
- Naming a device (“alliteration”) without an effect.
- Calling every informal word “slang” and stopping there.
Practice
Original Marlow Works items. Check the answer explanation after you try.
A city engineer writes an open letter to residents arguing that a proposed bike lane will "cut crash injuries on this corridor, not just add paint to the curb." The phrase most clearly functions to do which of the following?
Original Marlow Works item — not a College Board question.
Take your time—this is practice, not a test.
Answer explanation
A writer repeats “we waited” at the start of three sentences. What is one plausible effect?
Answer. The repetition can make delay feel endless and shared, pressing the audience to see waiting as the real injury.
Anaphora is only useful when you say what it does to the reader.
Related resources
External links with reuse status. Marlow Works is independent and does not copy restricted exam or textbook material.
Official / link only
AP English Language and Composition course page
Official skills framework for rhetoric, argument, and synthesis.
College Board · All rights reserved · accessed 2026-10-01
Open sourceCC BY — attribution required
English Composition: Connect, Collaborate, Communicate
Open composition text for writing process, argument, and revision.
Open Textbook Library listing · CC BY · accessed 2026-10-01
Open source