For Writing Clear Sentences

Style is largely a series of personal decisions you make when you write. Each writer has his or her own approach to sentence style. Yet every one of us has the same tools with which to work: words, phrases, and clauses. Watson (1991) draws our attention to the fact that “For all but a few rare spirits, style is hard-won – an ultimate effect of revision and editing” (p.61). When revising and editing your research paper, try to put into practice the following simple guidelines proposed by Pauley & Riordan (1983) and Pfeiffer (1994) for writing clear sentences:

1. Use normal word order

The normal word order in English is subject-verb-object. That order usually produces the clearest, most concise sentences. If you change the order, you emphasize the parts of the sentence that are out of place, but often your sentence is just wordy.

2. Write sentences of 12 to 25 words

An easy-to-read sentence is 12 to 25 words long. Shorter or longer sentences are weaker because they become too simple or too complicated. This rule, however, is only a rule of thumb. Longer sentences, especially those containing a parallel construction, can be easy to grasp.

3. Use parallel structure

Using parallel structure means using similar structure for similar elements. Careful writers use parallel structure for coordinate elements – elements with equal value in a sentence. Coordinate elements are connected by coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so) or are items in a series – words, phrases, or clauses. If coordinate elements in a sentence do not have a parallel pattern, the sentence becomes awkward and confusing.

Faulty

Management guarantees that the old system will be replaced and to consider the new proposal.

Parallel

Management guarantees that the old system will be replaced and that the new proposal will be considered.

Faulty

A successful firm is capable of manufacturing a product, marketing it, and make a profit.

Parallel

A successful firm is capable of manufacturing a product, marketing it, and making a profit.

4. Put the main idea first

Place the sentence’s main idea – its subject – first. When you do so, you provide context for what follows.

5. Leave out clichés

Clichés are worn-out expressions that add words to your writing. Though they once were fresh descriptive phrases, they became clichés when they no longer conveyed their original meaning. You can make writing more concise by replacing clichés with a good adjective or two. Here are some clichés to avoid:

6. Cut out extra words

This guideline covers all wordiness errors not mentioned earlier. You need to keep a vigilant eye for any extra words or redundant phrasing in your work. Sometimes the problem comes in the form of needless connecting words, like to be or that. Other times it appears as redundant points – that is, those that have been made earlier in a sentence, paragraph, or section and do not need repeating. Delete extra words when their use (1) does not add a necessary translation between ideas or (2) does not provide new information to the reader. (One important exception is the intentional repetition of main points for emphasis, as in repeating important conclusions in different parts of a report.) The following examples display a variety of wordy or redundant writing, with corrections made by crossing out:

Example.

She believed that the recruiting of more minorities for the technical staff is essential.

4.4. Observing Cultural Constraints

In previous units we have already considered some cultural approaches to organizing one’s ideas, using sources and writing. In the excerpts below some other cultural differences in academic writing are discussed. Reading these selections, answer the following questions:

1. What do native speakers associate the use of the first person pronoun in formal writing with?

2. Are you recommended to use the first person pronoun in your term papers?

3. How can the impersonal style in writing be achieved?

4. What is the attitude of Russian/Belarusian speakers to using counter arguments?

5. How should the information in academic English (text, sentence) be organized when a writer wants to persuade readers of a point of view?

6. What is the best way to learn to write conventional reports?

‘I’ in formal writing

“…Not all non-native users of English have the same view of the use of the first person pronoun in formal writing as native writers seem to have.

In the formal writing of native speakers, however, there turns out to be a close association of ‘I’ with ‘although’ and tentative expressions like ‘tend to think’, ‘would be inclined to doubt’, etc. In these contexts, ‘I’ seems to be used as a functional demur – a very different purpose from that for which some overseas students use it.

Notice that impersonal writing can be achieved with expressions like:

‘It was impossible (for anyone) to tell ...’

‘It is highly unlikely that ...’

‘There is very little likelihood of/that ...’

‘The fact that ...’ and passive sentences.

Using counter-arguments

There is a cultural difference between those who suppress any counter-arguments to the main thesis on the assumption that they weaken that thesis and those who think that their hand is strengthened by showing an awareness of counter-arguments (even if sometimes of minor importance).

Promoting nominal style

Most writers want to persuade their readers of a point of view. There is a conventional way of doing this in academic English that many second language users do not always fully understand.

When we write an essay, we typically begin by reviewing what is already known in the field, and only after we have done that do we introduce our own new, or modifying, ideas. This information structure is found everywhere – in essays, papers and articles. Even individual sentences typically begin with a topic or subject known to both reader and writer, which is then commented in the predicate, or second part, of the sentence. The word ‘the’ in English partly functions to remind us that the noun phrase in which it occurs refers to some event, object, person or idea already known to both speaker/writer and hearer/reader.

Report writing

It would be mistaken to expect anything very original in the framework or style of a laboratory report or a routine maintenance report. We would concede that imitating a model may be the best way to learn to write such conventional reports”.

(Brookes & Grundy, p. 99, 100, 112)

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Date: 2016-01-14; view: 782