Practice 7: Write LogicallyLogical Transition Practice Rewrite the second sentence of each of the following pairs so that it includes a logical transition from the pre-vious one.. prior-
Trang 1Be Specific Consider the following paragraphs:
Every first-year chemistry or physics student learns that opposite charges attract and like charges repel If we try to force two positive charges together, they will fly apart as soon as
we release them Similarly, if we try to hold a positive charge apart from a negative charge, they will fly together as soon as we release them The nucleus of an atom consists of a collec-tion of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons squashed together in a very small space Negatively charged electrons remain in “shells” that never touch the nucleus.
You should notice that the facts in these paragraphs don’t “fit” logically If like charges fly apart, then how
on earth could they remain together in a nucleus? Also, if unlike charges fall toward each other, why don’t the negative electrons fall into the positive nu-cleus? However, the second paragraph provides no logical “guideposts” to indicate this surprising rela-tionship between these ideas A good writer should acknowledge the contrasts between the ideas of the first paragraph and the ideas of the second paragraph
with logical transitions Notice how this revision
pro-vides the necessary transitions:
Every first-year chemistry or physics student learns that opposite charges attract and like charges repel If we try to force two positive charges together, they will fly apart as soon as we release them Similarly, if we try to hold a posi-tive charge apart from a negaposi-tive charge, they will
fly together as soon as we release them.
However, science students are also told that the nucleus of an atom consists of a collection of positively charged protons and uncharged neu-trons squashed together in a very small space They are also told that negatively charged elec-trons remain in “shells” that never touch the nu-cleus How can this be?
You need to think carefully about the logic of individ-ual sentences, as well
Not logical: The bill was in committee, and the
oppo-Lesson 7: Write Logically
Your argument is much more effective when
you discuss real and specific examples rather
than hypothetical and general ones You can
generalize in your thesis and conclusion, but
be specific everywhere else
Provide your readers with “guideposts” to help
them understand the logical relationships
between your ideas These guideposts, which
Consider this paragraph:
Although our Constitution provides us with the
right to bear arms, this right should not be a
uni-versal one That’s not what the Second
Amend-ment was intended for A lot of times it’s not
appropriate and just plain dangerous or foolish.
This is obvious to anyone who reads
newspa-pers or watches the TV news and knows about
what is going on in the world.
The argument isn’t effective because it gives no
specifics Consider this improvement:
Although our Constitution provides us with the
right to bear arms, this right was intended only to
protect citizens from the tyranny of government,
and not to arm citizens against one another In
many places, for instance in schools and other
public places, the right to bear arms does not
enhance public safety Even the popular argument
that it makes our homes safer is absurd Rather, it
merely increases the likelihood that a problematic
situation like an argument will turn deadly, as it
did last month when an eight-year-old boy shot
his six-year-old sister to death in New Jersey.
This revision is more forceful because it turns
the generalizations into specifics, and gives concrete
examples
Help Your Reader with
Logical Transitions
Trang 2Practice 7: Write Logically
Logical Transition Practice
Rewrite the second sentence of each of the following pairs so that it includes a logical transition from the pre-vious one
1 We knew that the game would be hard fought We never thought it would last 8 hours and 20 innings.
2 There were thousands of visitors in town for the game It was almost impossible to find a hotel room.
3 The theory of evolution has had a profound effect on scientific thought It has influenced many artists and writers.
4 We knew that punishing the culprits would do no good We took no action against them.
5 Perfect games are rare In the last two years, only one was bowled in the entire state.
6 There were several reasons for the delay The bus driver had the wrong directions.
Check your answers with the answer key at the end of the chapter
Trang 3Use Natural Language These nouns are all impersonal and abstract, so they
are hard to relate to Personal nouns refer to the
things in your readers’ common experience, things
that they personally understand Concrete nouns refer
to things that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or
touched Of course, if you are talking about ideas, you
will need to use abstract nouns, but don’t use any more than are necessary Not many people can keep track of 18 abstract and impersonal nouns in a single sentence Here’s a good revision:
Some people have left out relevant facts in this discussion, and have therefore minimized how much people support free expression and maxi-mized how much people want to eliminate offen-sive speech They have also ignored or obscured the crazy and illogical arguments against offen-sive speech In fact, the majority of Americans support free expression, and regard it as a moral necessity.
Without question, this conveys the author’s ideas much more clearly and effectively
Lesson 8: Write Clearly
Good writing follows more rules than
conver-sational speech does, but this doesn’t mean
that good writing is stiff and unnatural
Con-voluted and abstract language doesn’t make
“better” writing Although you should avoid
wordiness and egregious grammatical errors,
natural language is always better than overly
formal language.
Minimize abstract and impersonal nouns.
When they pile up, your thoughts become hard
to follow
Jargon such as win-win scenario, thinking outside the box, bulletizing the issues, targeting
a goal, bottom line, downside, facilitate, prior-itize, optimize, time frame, mutually beneficial, parameter, utilize, etc annoys good readers,
particularly when simpler, more common words suffice
This sentence is far too stiff and unnatural:
An individual person’s lack of tolerance and
inability to appreciate and even enjoy different
aspects in other individuals is a concept that
negatively affects the ability of a community to
avoid hatred and establish the environment in
which we would like to bring our children up.
It is much more effective when phrased more
nat-urally and concisely:
We create a much more peaceful society when
we learn to appreciate the differences in others.
Use Personal and Concrete Nouns
Is the following sentence easy to understand?
My concerns in general center on numerous
omissions of relevant facts and quotes, which
had the effect of diminishing the extent of the
ap-parent support of free expression, and the force of
the moral arguments for free expression, and of
enhancing the support of those who are vigilant
against dangerous speech, and obscuring the
more extreme arguments made on their behalf.
No Why not? Just look at the nouns:
My concerns in general center on numerous
Eliminate Jargon
Jargony: If we think outside the box and
Trang 4prior-Practice 8: Write Clearly
Clarification Practice
Rewrite the following sentences to eliminate stiffness, vagueness, and jargon
1 The concept of competition is an essential element with regard to the ability of society to encourage people to achieve excellence.
2 The consideration of all ideas of our employees is done by our management with the thinking that only the most quality concepts will elevate to the forefront.
3 A concern in the general population with regard to the ability of the government to optimize the positive use of federal funds has accelerated in recent times.
4 When one is placing the emphasis on the deterioration of the individual concern for others and personal moral responsibility, the role of social institutions is ignored.
Check your answers with the answer key at the end of the chapter
Trang 5Lesson 9: Write Concisely
Eliminate Wordiness
The fewer words you can use to convey an idea, the better You won’t impress readers by making them work hard
or by confusing them When you use wordy or unnatural language, a good reader will think that you don’t have command over your words, or that you’re stalling because you don’t have anything interesting to say
Sometimes even good writers can get ambushed by prepositional phrases Like most things, prepositional phrases are fine in moderation But too many—particularly when they are strung together—make a sen-tence wordy and unclear
Avoid wordy phrases like those below Use the concise versions.
Eliminate any word or phrase that conveys an idea already stated or implied in the sentence
Wordy: Courage is a value that is very difficult to be found in and among individuals in the world today,
even though it is clearly something that nearly everyone of every persuasion and creed finds to be
an extremely important and valuable element of human morality.
Better: Courage today is rare, and so all the more precious.
has a dependence on depends regardless of the fact that although provides enforcement enforces in our world today today
is in violation of violates in this day and age today
achieves the maximization of maximizes due to the fact that because provides opposition to opposes at this point in time now
give consideration to consider are aware of the fact know
Watch Your Prepositional Phrases
Wordy: Few people in the media recognize their responsibility to the public for writing fair and unbiased
pieces for the sake of expanding their readers’ trust in their representations of the world around them (seven prepositional phrases)
Better: Few journalists understand that they must sustain scrupulous impartiality in order to maintain
the trust of their readers (one prepositional phrase)
Avoid Redundancy
Trang 6Practice 9: Write Concisely
Redundancy Sweeping Practice
Eliminate any redundancies in the following sentences
1 An effective and good manager must need to rely on sound, solid management principles as well as past
experience.
2 Both parents as well as students should have input into the new testing plan.
3 Many cleaning substances should not be combined together, because violent reactions could result.
4 Even if each and every citizen contributed to the effort, it would still take several years to complete.
5 The food and blankets dropped for the suffering refugees were far from sufficient enough to ward off the hunger
and cold.
6 We watched the jet until it disappeared from view.
Tightening-Up Practice
Rewrite the following sentences to eliminate wordiness
7 In this day and age, all too many people have a dependence on television as their exclusive source of information.
8 Few people are aware of the fact that such gambling is in violation of federal law.
9 Due to the fact that corporations endeavor to achieve the maximization of profit, they rarely put their focus on
environmental needs.
10 In the event that your boss expresses opposition to your proposal at the meeting, consider having a
head-to-head conversation with her about it personally.
11 It is certainly clear that too few people give consideration to the fact that economic strength is often reflective
of the hopes of consumers.
Check your answers with the answer key at the end of the chapter
Trang 7Eliminate Weak Verbs—Uncover the
“Lurking Verbs”
Why is this sentence so weak and vague? It’s filled with jargon, abstract nouns, and weak and passive verbs Here’s a much more effective revision:
Investors like aggressive companies that are committed to making themselves well known and to building their share of the market As a re-sult, investors put a lot of money into these com-panies, thereby overvaluing them, even though the companies often have weak products or busi-ness models.
We’ve cut out the jargon, used more concrete nouns, included more logical connections, and found stronger
verbs We also replaced the passive verb with an active verb A passive verb places the noun performing the
ac-tion after the verb, as in The ball was hit by the boy, or
eliminates the noun performing the action altogether, as
in The ball was hit In the original sentence, the verb is in the passive voice and doesn’t convey a clear thought: The
companies will be seen as “players.” Seen by whom? It
doesn’t say, so the sentence is unclear Notice that the
revision makes this clear: Investors like companies This
tells us what’s happening, and who’s doing it
Lesson 10: Write Forcefully
Take an essay you’ve written recently and circle
all of the verbs How many are forms of the verb
to be, like is, are, was, and were? Probably too
many To be is the most overused verb in the
English language, and it is also the weakest.
Other weak verbs are to exist and to have Too
many of these verbs in your writing make it
weak and lifeless If your writing contains too
many weak verbs, find the stronger lurking
verbs in the sentence, and rewrite it Lurking
verbs are words in the sentence that aren’t verbs
but should be, because they convey the idea or
action of the sentence more effectively
Weak: The mice have a tendency to overeat
when they are in the absence of this
hormone.
Stronger: The mice tend to overeat when they
lack this hormone.
The original verbs, have and are, are weak More
effective verbs are “lurking” as nouns in the first
sen-tence: tendency and absence seem to carry the main
ideas, but they are nouns Notice how much more
forceful the revision is because these ideas were
transformed into verbs
Weak: We will not be tolerant of anyone
who is disrespectful of the opposing
players.
Stronger: We won’t tolerate anyone who
dis-respects the opposing players.
Use Clear and Active Verbs
Consider this example of a weak and unclear sentence:
The most aggressive of the new companies,
Use the passive voice sparingly: don’t say The
ball was hit by the boy when you can say The boy hit the ball The passive voice often makes a
sentence needlessly wordy and vague
Phrases like give it 110%, go for the gold, rip it to
shreds, in the lap of luxury, keep at arm’s length, pick up the pieces, cross that bridge when we come
to it, go to town, and so on are clichés A cliché
is an overused phrase Whenever you use a cliché
in your writing, a good reader will think you are being lazy, or that you cannot think of an origi-nal way to convey your idea Instead, use your own, original words to convey your thoughts
Eliminate Clichés
Clichéd: Believe me, I felt like a fish out of
Trang 8Practice 10: Write Forcefully
Cliché Sweeping Practice
Rewrite each sentence to eliminate any clichés
1 Many people these days are fond of saying that the youth of this day and age are lazy as dogs.
2 They say that kids are nothing but couch potatoes who sit like bumps on a log playing video games or
watch-ing MTV.
3 For all intents and purposes, this assumption is dead wrong.
4 As a matter of fact, many of my friends are thinking more about careers that will change the world as we know
it rather than careers that will just chase the almighty dollar.
Verb Strengthening Practice
Rewrite the following sentences to strengthen the verbs Uncover any good “lurking” verbs
5 This action is in violation of the company’s own contract.
6 The village was affected to a devastating degree by the earthquake.
7 My failure on the test was reflective of the fact that I didn’t study.
8 The movie was considered by the critics to be dull and hackneyed.
9 The bold maneuver was made by the army under the cover of night.
10 Outside the office were a dozen chairs filling the hallway.
Check your answers with the answer key at the end of the chapter
Trang 9Vary Your Sentence Length Wisely
Consider the following paragraph:
Many people buy into the cliché “guns don’t kill
people; people kill people.” On its surface, this
statement seems obviously true However, some
deep thought and analysis about this statement,
its assumptions and implications, shows clearly
that it is mistaken.
Not bad, but consider the following revision:
Many people buy into the cliché “guns don’t kill
people; people kill people.” On its surface, this
statement seems obviously true It’s not.
Why is the last sentence of the revision more
effec-tive than the last sentence of the first paragraph?
Be-cause it’s short When it follows a series of lengthy,
informative sentences, a short sentence hits the
reader like a slap in the face and drives home an
im-portant point
Example:
Life is characterized by the ups and downs one expe-riences while living from day to day.
The writer probably thought that this sentence was profound when she wrote it But it really doesn’t say
anything at all Saying that life has ups and downs is
just stating the obvious No rational person would disagree with that The writer should eliminate this sentence
Example:
Every country seeks a constant prosperity in its growth.
This sentence is so vague and uninteresting that it’s
hardly worth saving How can a country seek
any-thing? Maybe the people can, but not the country Saying that people seek prosperity is a pretty
uninter-esting observation Do they really seek constant
pros-perity? What does that even mean? And what the heck
is prosperity in their growth? Clearly, this is a sentence
to nowhere
Choose Your Words Carefully
Lesson 11: Write Masterfully
Good writers always think about the length of
their sentences Long sentences may be
neces-sary for explaining complex ideas, but very
short sentences are often best for emphasizing
important points Good writers have good vocabularies They
know that one well-chosen “bargain” word is often worth six modifiers
Don’t use overblown vocabulary unnecessarily Fancy words are often distracting
Eliminate sentences that state the obvious, are
hopelessly vague, or don’t move your thesis
for-ward Sometimes a sentence that seemed
pro-found when you first wrote it may turn out to be
nonsensical or unintelligible Every sentence
should convey a fresh and interesting idea that
moves your argument forward Any sentence
that fails to do that should be eliminated
Eliminate Sentences to Nowhere
Weak diction: I walked through the finish line
as if my legs were ridiculously heavy, and sat down exhausted.
Strong diction: I lumbered through the finish
line and collapsed.
Trang 10Practice 11: Write Masterfully
Sentence Variation Practice
Cross out the sentence in each paragraph that is too long Then rewrite the sentence to increase its impact
1 Many neoconservatives love to claim that lowering taxes actually raises government revenue Any rational examination of this claim shows clearly that it is wrong, or at least not as simple as they are claiming In fact, the government’s tax revenue depends on many things other than the tax rate.
2 My mother sat me down and explained to me how important it is to spend money wisely After listening to her carefully, I understood the point she was trying to make I began keeping better track of my accounts and became a wiser consumer.
Bargain Word Practice
Find a single word or shorter phrase to capture the idea in bold
3 David looked very closely at his test results.
4 The girls in the car talked on and on about meaningless things for hours.
5 The coach gave us a long, harsh, and critical speech about our lack of effort in the first half.
Toning Down Practice
Tone down the fancy vocabulary in the sentences below
6 When a practitioner of medicine suggests an appropriate remedy for a malady, it is best that the person to whom
it was offered utilizes it strictly according to the instructions.
7 Plebeians execrate prevaricators, while aristocrats lionize them.
Check your answers with the answer key at the end of the chapter