Syntax practice for paper 1

1. Analyse the writers’ use of passive verb construction and repetition in the following examples (italics mine):

a) We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 77

repetition "kind" - emphasis, not main focus, afterthought, irrelevant, it's worth less than the other words and therefore has to repeat it
verb construction - present, past, present tense.

b) They sailed and trailed and flew and raced and crawled and walked and were carried,
finally, home.
John Knowles, Indian Summer, 4

repetition "and" - emphasises the quantity of what is happening
verb construction - all past tense, "were carried" breaks the pattern, makes that ones stay out, places more emphasis on the words afterwards as sentence becomes less monotonous

1. Analyse the speaker’s use of parallelism and sentence length in the following example:

a) All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first
one thousand days nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on
this planet. But let us begin.
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961

parallelism - 2nd sentence, emphasis on the time it will take
parallelism in the content of the sentences, increases the time but the message stays the same
sentence length -
1st sentence - very clear, on theme with what he is gonna say next, introduction, getting the audience interested
2nd sentence, very long, complicated,
3rd sentence - rallying people, just a phrase, matches the first sentence, long sentence before short sentence puts emphasis on this short sentence.

1. Find an online advertisement containing visuals and 2-5 sentences. Copy the copy (see definition #3 here) to your blog and add a hyperlink to the full advertisement. Answer the following guiding question in 300 - 500 words:

a) How is syntax used to persuade the reader?