Writing in the Humanities Art Analysis Assignment

Audience

Write for educated individuals ages 16-65, meaning with such a wide audience that you should not assume that your readers know everything you do, or that you know everything your readers do.

Style & Language  
Write consistently in third-person point of view (i.e., avoid I, me, my, we, us, our, you, your). 

As Roy Peter Clark recommends, activate your verbs, and keep your subjects and verbs as close to the front of the sentence as possible.  Use there is/there are/it is/it was (i.e., expletive constructions) sparingly at the front-end of a sentence.    

 Audience 

Use academic, formal prose containing no slang, contractions, jargon, or gender-biased language.  Concerning that last limitation, make sure your nouns and pronouns agree; choose plural subjects over singular subjects (e.g., use individuals instead of individual). See examples and explanations below: 

NO: The reader can see that this work of art is about science; they can more specifically see that it is about the scientific discovery of planetary debris.   .   

Why: reader is singular, and they is plural, so the noun and pronoun do not agree.

NO: The reader can see that this work of art is about scientific discovery; he can more specifically see that it is about the scientific discovery of planetary debris.   

Why: using the pronoun he assumes a masculine reader and is, therefore, gender biased.

YES/NO: The reader can see that this work of art is about scientific discovery; he or she can more specifically see that it is about the scientific discovery of planetary debris.

Why: While gender neutral, and technically correct, using the pronouns he or she elongates the thought and will irritate readers.
YES: Readers can see that the poem is about scientific discovery; they can more specifically see that it is about the scientific discovery of planetary debris.

Why: using the plural subject readers avoids the gender-bias problem because the writer can now use they as a pronoun, instead of he.  It also avoids the awkward problem of he or she. Finally, it avoids the problem of noun and pronoun disagreement.