Strategies for making your sentences clear

Here’s an online page of strategies for improving sentence clarity. The page is part of The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

The Takeaway: If you are having trouble making your sentences clear, visit the OWL’s “Improving Sentence Clarity” page. Like the rest of the OWL, it is well thought out, well organized and well written.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (25)

“For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
~Ecclesiastes 1:18

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
~Richard Feynman [This quotation is an exquisite example of concision.]

“Only incompetent people love the team, and they love it because it makes it harder to discover their incompetence.”
~Gavin McInnes

“I can’t read ten pages of Steinbeck without throwing up.”
~James Gould Cozzens (pictured)

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” [He knew his grammar: “on his” not “on him.”]
~Upton Sinclair

“A serene wisdom founded on truth is, the Ancients all agreed, the only true source of happiness, which is not to be confused with the merriment of fools.”
~John Derbyshire

“No young person on earth is so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical love. Good Lord – as youngsters play their parts in political tragedies with casts of billions, uncritical love is the only real treasure they can look for.”
~Kurt Vonnegut, in Mother Night

“I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.”
~Dorothy Parker [Her intentionally vague antecedent makes the line even funnier.]

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind.

See disclaimer.

Bits and pieces (1)

Today we present examples of miscellaneous errors.

Poor composition

“The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe eco-region), of lava beds and playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt playa 100 miles north of Reno that encompasses more than 300,000 acres of land and contains more than 120 miles of historic trails. It is in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin...” (Source) (Several links omitted.)

The reader has to read 39 words before being told where the desert is located (100 miles north of Reno).

Silly use of hedging

“We [hairdressers] are kind of like the fabric of people’s lives.” (Source)

The hairdresser makes a grand claim but hedges it twice. The reader is left to guess what she really meant to say.

Vague antecedent

“Take Camden, New Jersey, for example, a place that tops the list of most dangerous cities in America year after year. Residents of the city have been told when the criminals are at the door, calling the police won’t be able to help them.” (Source)

Does “them” refer to “Residents” or “the criminals”?

The Takeaway: Whenever you are writing something for publication – even if it’s “just” a blog – try to have an experienced editor read your copy.

See disclaimer.