For example, the passive is useful when you don't want to call attention to the doer; when the doer is obvious, unimportant, or unknown; or when passive voice is the conventional style among your readers. When you have a series of words, phrases, or clauses, put them in parallel form similar grammatical construction so that the reader can identify the linking relationship more easily and clearly.
In the second sentence, notice how the string of "things to be aware of in Florida" does not create a parallel structure. Also, notice how much more difficult it is for a reader to follow the meaning of the second sentence compared to the first one. Try not to string nouns together one after the other because a series of nouns is difficult to understand. One way to revise a string of nouns is to change one noun to a verb.
Use affirmative forms rather than several negatives because multiple negatives are difficult to understand. When possible, avoid using forms of be as the main verbs in your sentences and clauses.
This problem tends to accompany nominalization see above. Instead of using a be verb, focus on the actions you wish to express, and choose the appropriate verbs.
In the following example, two ideas are expressed: 1 that there is a difference between television and newspaper news reporting, and 2 the nature of that difference. The revised version expresses these two main ideas in the two main verbs. Be sure that the pronouns you use refer clearly to a noun in the current or previous sentence. If the pronoun refers to a noun that has been implied but not stated, you can clarify the reference by explicitly using that noun.
This, that, these, those, he, she, it, they, and we are useful pronouns for referring back to something previously mentioned. Be sure, however, that what you are referring to is clear. General Writing Mechanics. Improving Sentence Clarity Summary: If you're having sentence clarity problems in your papers, this handout might be just what you need. Every semester after final exams are over, I'm faced with the problem of what to do with books of lecture notes new information.
They old might be useful some day, but they just keep piling up on my bookcase new. Sentence Clarity: Characters and Actions Online Activity 2 Return to your paper draft and expand your focus to a whole page. Try to answer the question: if these words became verbs, who would be taking those actions? Copy and paste a segment of the page where you did the most revisions. Please submit the original sentence s , and the revised sentence s to your instructor.
You can try revising the example sentences there and compare your efforts to the suggested revisions provided by the site.
Next, return to the page from your draft that you revised for the second online activity, and see if you can improve it further. Write sentences explaining what you discovered, and whether you made any changes. Submit your response to your instructor.
Sentence Clarity: Characters and Actions Survey Please answer the following two questions, and submit the responses to your instructor. Download Worksheet. The topic of this week's writing tip is sentence clarity. After having spent some time analyzing different types of sentences in the past few weeks, let us delve into a discussion on some other common writing problems.
The following information is adapted from Chapter 25 of Andrea Lunsford's The Everyday Writer, with citation following. Beginning a sentence with one grammatical pattern and then switching to a new one is problematic for clarity. Because writers depend on the words that lie on the page to speak for them, it is important that.
0コメント