Saturday, September 26, 2015

Clarity, Part 2

Downing, Jenny. "Clarity and Brightness of Chablis Wine" 6/21/2008 via wikimedia.
Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The following are short discussions on four more topics from the 'clarity' section in rules for writers.

Parallel ideas, page 116
I think I did a fairly good job at using parallelism. an example I have is "it’s opinions on what those facts mean, and how heavily they weigh." It keeps, in both parts, the same subject and tense, and both use a qualifying word and verb. This is a pretty common thing I do in my writing.

Active verbs, page 112
I found a few instances of passive sentences, one being "they will all be in favor of space exploration." I simply removed the "be in" and voila! active verb. It now reads: "they will all favor of space exploration." as the book says, this makes it a whole lot stronger.

Misplaced and dangling modifiers, page 127
I knew that the position of a modifier could change its meaning, but not exactly how it did so. Now I know what to look out for, and to make sure I keep it in mind. But really, a modifier can go just about anywhere in a sentence, which is unique, because not many words can do that.

Mixed constructions, page 123
After going through my draft, I am fairly sure that I didn't do this. I have seen it before, and it usually come from (for me, at least) when I change my mind of how I want to say something mid-sentence.  As long as I stay focused on what I am saying, it shouldn't be an issue.

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