Clarity, Part 1

In the following post, I will describe four sections I read about within the Rules for Writers book, and what I learned or already knew. The four section are: wordy sentences, active verbs, parallel ideas, and needed words.

Tall Chris. "magnifying glass". 05/16/2005 via Flickr.
Attribution 2.0 Generic License. 

1. Wordy sentences: After reading through this section, I realized how much I truly repeated myself, added unnecessary words to make sentences longer, and just overall tried too hard to make sentences longer. I think this is something I learned to do in high school, for classes that had a specific word count, or to just make my writing seem longer. Everything mentioned in this section, I'm pretty sure I've done. I definitely need to change that for my QRG.

2. Active verbs:After reading this section, I realized how many of my sentences used passive versus active verbs. I always write in the past tense and I don't really know why, but I think I may unintentionally always try to emphasize the receiver of the action, as the book states. I will definitely pay more attention to the words I use when writing in the future.

3. Parallel ideas:After reading this section, I think I am solid on balancing parallel ideas. I learned what each of the uses are called, because I never had words for them before, such as balancing parallel ideas in a series, as pairs, or repeating function words to clarify parallels.

4. Needed words: I found that, after reading this section, I do most of the things correctly, save for the 10c section: add words needed to make comparisons logical and complete. I tend to leave the sentences sometimes incomplete, in order to avoid being too wordy. I will definitely change that for my QRG.

Reflection

After reading Laurence's and Andrea's QRG Drafts, I feel like my own QRG draft is pretty rough. I can see how words truly make a difference within writing, and editing other people's drafts was good for me to practice doing my own edits, and staying objective.

In Laurence's draft, one of the sentences lacked a few function words to clarify parallels, so I stuck a few in ( as shown underlined) to modify it and help it flow:

"With recalls for defective airbags that may explode, experience random stalling, go through corrosion, have power steering failures, undergo headlamp failures..." (page 1)

In Andrea's draft, one of the sentences was too wordy, so I suggested a few edits to increase it flow, as shown below.

Before: "People who are concerned are scientists & health groups, as well as the common public." (page 1)
After: "People who are concerned are scientists, health groups, and the common public." (page 1)