Sentences do have ways of becoming flabby, redundant, wordy, unclear, indirect, passive, and just plain old hard to understand. Even so, they remain grammatically "correct"-all their subjects and verbs agree, the commas are in the right places, the words are spelled correctly. Still, these sentences are far more difficult to read than any sentence with just a comma problem.
The following sections can't pretend to cover all of the ways sentences can go bad at this higher level, but they do cover seven of the most common problems and shows you ways of fixing them. And knowing these seven will probably enable you to spot all the others we have not trapped and labeled yet. Specifically, here is what is covered:
Problem: The contribution of Quality Circles is mostly to areas of
training and motivating people to produce higher quality work.
Revision: Quality Circles contribute to the training and the
motivating of people to produce high quality work.
Problem: Measurement of temperature is done in degrees of Fahrenheit
or Celsius, and its indications are by colored marks on the outside of the
thermometer.
Revision: Temperature is measured in degrees of Fahrenheit or
Celsius and is indicated by colored marks on the outside
of the thermometer.
Problem: The beginning of the clonic phase is when the sustained
tonic spasm of the muscles gives way to sharp, short, interrupted jerks.
Revision: The clonic phase begins when the sustained tonic spasm of
the muscle gives way to sharp, short, interrupted jerks.
Problem: During speech, the generation of sound is by vocal chords
and the rushing of air from the lungs.
Revision: During speech, sound is generated by the vocal cords and
rushing air from the lungs.
Problem: The response of the normal ear to sounds is in the
audio-frequency between about 20-20,000 Hz.
Revision: The normal ear responds to sounds within the
audio-frequency range of about 20-20,000 Hz.
Revise noun stacks. Another common sentence-style problem involves piling up nouns in a
phrase. The effect is similar being hit in the head with a large blunt object. Again,
take a look at the examples of this problem, which are also not hard to spot, and at
the revisions. When you revise a "noun stack," you unpack or unstack the nouns
into clauses and phrases:
Problem: There is a growing awareness of organizational employee
creative capacity.
Revision: Awareness of the creative capacity
of employees in all organizations is growing.
Problem: Position acquisition requirements are any combination of
high school graduation and years of increasingly responsible secretarial
experience.
Revision: To qualify for the position, you'll need to be a high
school graduate and have had increasingly responsible
secretarial experience.
Problem: The Quality Circle participation roles and tasks and
time/cost requirements of Quality Circle organizational implementation will
be described.
Revision: The tasks of the participants in Quality Circles and the
time and cost requirements involved in the implementation
of Quality Circles will be discussed.
Problem: Proper integrated circuit packaging type identification and
applications are crucial to electrical system design and repair.
Revision: Identifying the proper type of packaging for integrated
circuits is crucial to the design and repair of
electrical systems.
Problem: Cerebral-anoxia-associated neonatal period birth injuries
can lead to epileptic convulsions.
Revision: Birth injuries associated with cerebral anoxia in the
neonatal period can lead to epileptic convulsions.
Revise redundant phrasing. Redundancy in writing can come about from these three sources
(but there are probably plenty more):
in view of the fact that since, because
at this point in time then
it is recommended that we recommend
as per your request as you requested
in light of the fact that since, because
being of the opinion that I believe
in the near future soon
during the time that then
it would be advisable to should, ought
due to the fact that since, because
in this day and age now, currently
for the reason that since, because
in my own personal opinion I believe,in my opinion
to the fullest extent possible fully
in accordance with your request as you requested
four in number four
predicated upon the fact that based on
inasmuch as since, because
pursuant to your request as you requested
in connection with related to
take cognizance of the fact that realize
it has come to my attention that I have learned that
with reference to the fact that concerning, about
with regard to concerning, about
in close proximity to near, close, about
to the extent that as much as
in the neighborhood of near, close, about
until such time as until
has the ability to can
that being the case therefore
Revise weak expletives. If you were around for Watergate, the term "expletive" means
something specific to you (in the tapes and transcripts of Nixon's staff, many
expletives had to be "deleted"). In this context, however, the term expletive refers to
variations of there is and it is. This is not to say that it is always wrong to use these
phrases in sentences, but they can easily be misused or overused. Like redundant
phrasing, they add more words than are needed, and more words blunt the
meaning, create a fog around the sense of a sentence. Here are some examples
and their revision:
Problem: When there is a very strong build-up at the front of the
plane, it is what is known as a shock wave.
Revision: When a very strong build-up occurs at the front end of
the plane, a shock wave occurs.
Problem: When there is decay of a radioactive substance, there is
the emission of some form of a high-energy particle--an alpha particle, a
beta particle, or a gamma ray.
Revision: When a radioactive substance decays, some form of a
high-energy particle--an alpha particle, a beta particle,
or a gamma ray--is emitted.
Problem: It is the results of studies of the central region of the
M87 galaxy that have shown that there are stars near the center that move
around as though there were some huge mass at the center that was
attracting them.
Revision: Recent studies of the central region of the M87 galaxy
have shown stars near the center moving around as though
some huge mass at the center were attracting them.
Revise weak passive-voice sentences. One of the all-time worst offenders for creating
unclear, wordy, indirect writing is the passive-voice construction. It's easy enough to
convert a sentence from active voice to passive voice, and back again:
Active: The student wrote the report.
Passive: The report was written by the student.
However, the passive voice can be a shifty operator-it can cover up its source,
that is, who's doing the acting, as this example show:
Passive: The papers will be graded according to the criteria stated
in the syllabus. (Graded by whom though?)
Active: The teacher will grade the papers according to the
criteria stated in the syllabus. (Oh! that guy...)
(It's this ability to cover the actor or agent of the sentence that makes the passive
voice a favorite of people in authority-policemen, city officials, and, yes, teachers.
But save that for some other course!) At any rate, you can see how the passive
voice can cause wordiness, indirectness, and comprehension problems.
Passive: Your figures have been reanalyzed in order to determine
the coefficient of error. The results will be announced
when the situation is judged appropriate.
Active: We have reanalyzed your figures in order to determine the
range of error. We will announce the results when the
time is right.
Passive: Almost all home mortgage loans nowadays are made for
twenty-five years. With the price of housing at such
inflated levels, those loans cannot be paid off in any
shorter period of time.
Active: Almost all home mortgage loans nowadays are for
twenty-five years. With the price of housing at such
inflated levels, homeowners cannot pay off those loans in
any shorter period of time.
Passive: After the arm of the hand-held stapler is pushed down,
the blade from the magazine is raised by the top-leaf
spring, and the magazine and base
Active: After you push down on the arm of the hand-held stapler,
the top-leaf spring raises the blade from the magazine,
and the magazine and base move apart.
Passive: However, market share is being lost by 5.25-inch
diskettes as is shown in the graph in Figure 2.
Active: However, 5.25-inch diskettes are losing market share as
the graph in Figure 2 shows.
Passive: For many years, federal regulations concerning the use of
wire-tapping have been ignored. Only recently have
tighter restrictions been imposed on the circumstances
that warrant it.
Active: For many years, government officials have ignored federal
regulations concerning the use of wire-tapping. Only
recently has the federal government imposed tighter
restrictions on the circumstances that warrant it.
Don't get the idea that the passive voice is always wrong and should never be
used. It is a good writing technique when we don't want to be bothered with an
obvious or too-often-repeated subject and when we need to rearrange words in a
sentence for emphasis.Revise subject-verb mismatches. In dense, highly technical writing, it's easy to lose track of the real subject and pick a verb that just does not make sense. The result is a noun physically not able to do what the verb says it is doing, or some abstract thing performing something nitty-gritty real-world action. Here are some examples and their revision:
Problem: The causes of the disappearance of early electric
automobiles were devastating to the future of energy
conservation in the U.S.
Revision: The disappearance of early electric automobiles destroyed
the future of energy conservation in the U.S.
Problem: Presently, electric vehicles are experimenting with two
types of energy sources.
Revision: Presently, research on electric vehicles involves two
types of energy sources.
Problem: Consequently, the body is more coordinated and is less
likely to commit mental mistakes.
Revision: Consequently, workers will be more coordinated and commit
fewer mental errors.
Revise sentence-length problems. When you are writing about highly technical subject
matter, it is easy to construct long sentences that become hard to read. The military
standard for many years has been 17 words per sentence. Other standards allow
up to 25 words per sentence. It's not that sentences can't be significantly longer or
shorter than these standards-it's just that the average ought to stay somewhere
within the 17- to 25-word range. However, any sentence over 35 or 40 words
probably needs to be broken up. And while an occasional short sentence (say, 5 to
10 words) can be very effective, lots of them can cause writing to be choppy and
hard to follow.Breaking up overly long sentences is fun-it's a lot like throwing things away or tearing something down (it appeals to our destructive urges). Take a look at these examples, before and after:
Problem: In order to understand how a solid, liquid or gas can be
made to give off radiation in the form of a laser beam, one must under
stand some of the basic theory behind laser light.
Revision: A solid, liquid or gas can be made to give off radiation
in the form of a laser beam. Understanding this process
requires some knowledge about the basic theory behind
laser light.
Problem: Laser beams, which have many properties that distinguish
them from ordinary light, result from the emission of energy from atoms in
the form of electromagnetic waves whose range in most laser beams is 10-3
to 10-7 meters.
Revision: Most laser beams are just beams of light but which have
properties that distinguish them from ordinary light.
Laser beams result from the emission of energy from atoms
to form of electromagnetic waves. The range of
electromagnetic waves found in most laser beams is 10-3 to
10-7 meters.
Return to the table of contents for the TCM1603 Course Guide
(the online textbook for Austin Community College's online
technical writing course).