Transcript ppt

Chapter 24
Working with
Sentences
Chapter overview
• Looks at strategies for composing sentences,
and presents editing techniques
• Examines nonsexist and nondiscriminatory
language
• Provides strategies for proofreading sentences
by looking at 10 common problems, as well 10
problems for ESL writers
• Concludes by looking at logical fallacies
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Options for composing sentences
• Coordination links two or more clauses to
show their equal weight in a sentence.
• Subordination links clauses in ways that show
that some clauses modify, qualify, or comment
on the main clause.
• See pages 650-652 for examples.
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Modification
• Another way to compose more interesting
sentences is to modify, or add details, to some
of the words.
• Modifiers are used with nouns, adverbs, verbs,
phrases, and clauses.
• See the examples on page 652-653.
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Active and passive voice
Active or passive voice refers to the way
sentences are written.
• Joe hit the ball (active).
• The ball was hit by Joe (passive).
• The active voice is the best choice under most
circumstances; however, scientific writing is
often done in the passive voice.
• See pages 654-655 for more details.
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Diction and tone
• Diction refers to word choices made by
the writer.
• These choices give writing its tone of voice:
formal, informal or something in between.
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Informal to formal
• Informal: The new Harry Potter movie is just
totally awesome. (Okay to write in an e-mail to
a friend).
• Formal: The recently released Harry Potter
movie has done well in its opening weeks, and
the general consensus of reviewers is that it
has a strong plot and solid casting. (More
appropriate for an essay).
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Jargon
• Jargon refers to the special terminology used
by people in the same profession or group.
• Think of the terms that the following people
might use: police officers, computer geeks,
nurses, or teachers.
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Jargon, cont.
• The text comments that “to speak and write in
that vernacular is a sign of membership” (689).
• However, if your audience is not part of that
group, your jargon will become barriers to
their understanding your document.
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Two types of clauses
A clause is a group of words that includes a
subject and an object. There are two types
of clauses.
• An independent clause stands alone; it
expresses a complete idea.
• A dependent clause must be combined with
an independent clause.
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Nominalization
• Academic and professional jargon results from
a number of strategies, including
nominalization.
• This happens when new words are created by
adding –tion, -ity, -ness, -ance, -ment, and -ism
to existing words.
• Unfortunately, too much of this packed into
one sentence can turn a simple idea into one
that is almost unreadable.
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Guidelines for editing sentences
Editing a document by looking at individual
sentences is an important part of the writing
process. Three main guidelines to edit
sentences include:
• Clarity (clearness)
• Emphasis
• Variety
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Clarity
Refers to clearness of a sentence. Problems
that interfere with clarity include:
• Confusing sentence structure
• Wordiness
• Vagueness
• See pages 659-661 for examples and
strategies for correcting them.
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Emphasis
Direct the readers to the most important part of a
sentence, which is usually the beginning and
ending. To do so, look at:
• Word order
• Parallelism and repetition
• Climatic order (saving the best for last)
• See pages 661-663 for examples and details.
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Variety
• Variety refers to having sentences that differ in
their length and structure; otherwise, all of the
sentences will start to sound alike, and can
become monotonous.
• See the text on pages 663-664 for an
explanation of when shorter, middle length,
and longer sentences are most effective.
• Two strategies: Vary sentence length, and add
elements of surprise.
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Nonsexist language
• See the Ethics box, pages 667-668.
• “… certain words and phrases convey
attitudes about racial, ethnic, and other social
groups” (667).
• Writers have a responsibility to be aware of
how their language choices reflect stereotypes
and offend people.
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Three guidelines
• Replace masculine nouns with more
inclusive words.
• Replace masculine pronouns when referring
to people in general.
• Use nongendered terms when discussing
occupations and social roles.
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Fragments, Comma Splices,
and Fused Sentences
• Sentence fragments do not express a
complete idea.
• Comma splices join two complete sentences
using a comma.
• Fused sentences join two sentences but do
not use a comma.
• See pages 665-666 and 669-670 for
examples, as well as remedies.
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Agreement and verb shift
• Subject-verb agreement means that singular
verbs go with singular subjects.
• Verb shift refers to changes in tense that are
not consistent or logical.
• See pages 670-671.
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Pronoun agreement
• Pronouns need to agree with their antecedents:
Singular antecedents take singular pronouns.
• An antecedent is the word to which the
pronoun refers. Jane always drinks milk with
her meals; “Jane” is the antecedent for the
pronoun “her.”
• See page 670 for more details, including how
to treat collective nouns.
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Pronoun reference, modifiers
• Pronoun reference: readers should be able to
connect the pronoun with its antecedent.
Modifiers can be problematic in three ways:
• Dangling modifiers use the –ing ending, but their
placement in the sentence is confusing.
• Misplaced modifiers have a word or phrase that
seems to be in the wrong place
• Disruptive modifiers separate the subject and
verb. See pages 673-674 for more details.
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Mixed construction, faulty
predication and parallelism
• Mixed construction refers to sentences that
seem to shift sentence structure.
• Faulty predication happens when the second
part of a sentence seems to be on a different
topic than the first part of the sentence.
• Parallelism refers to putting items in a list in
the same structure.
• See pages 674-676 for more details.
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Ten common problems
• The text next discusses the 10 most common
problems found with sentences.
• This section is one to which you will want to
refer as you look at your own papers, as well
as those of your peers, because it gives
examples and explanations of the errors, as
well as ways to edit or fix them.
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Ten problems for ESL writers
• The next section of the chapter covers the 10
most common errors for ESL writers.
• “ESL” refers to English as a Second Language.
• These writers share some struggles, which are
not so much about how sentences are put
together as they are about how to use specific
types of words such as articles.
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Nouns, pronouns and articles
• Subject/pronoun repetition: Refers to repeating
the subject, which is not done in English.
• Articles (a, an, the): Refers to knowing when
to use them.
• Singular and plural proper nouns: A proper
noun is the capitalized name of a person, place,
group, or thing. Singular nouns rarely use an
article, but plural nouns often do.
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Nouns, pronouns and articles, cont.
• Singular- and plural-count noun: These terms
refer to words for people and things that can be
counted. Use “a” or “an” before a singularcount noun when it refers to something in
general. Use “the” when referring to
something specifically.
• Noncount nouns name things that can’t be
counted and take no article or “the.” See pages
708-709 for more details.
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This, that, these, and those
• This, that, these and those: These words are
sometimes called demonstrative adjectives
or pronouns because they point at something
specific.
• This and that are singular; these and those
are plural. Make sure they agree in number
with the nouns they modify.
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Adjective form and sequence
• Adjective form: Adjectives never take a plural
form to agree with nouns they modify.
• Adjective sequence: When using more than
one adjective to modify a noun, there are some
guidelines to follow.
• See pages 709-710 for guidelines and
examples.
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Prepositions at, on, and in
•
•
•
These prepositions indicate time and location.
Time: use “at” for a specific time and “on”
for days and dates.
Use “in” for months, seasons, and times
during the day.
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Prepositions at, on, and in, cont.
• Use “at” for specific addresses, named
locations, general locations, or locations for a
specific activity.
• Use “on” for names of streets, modes of
transportation, floors of buildings, pages, and
tracts of land.
• Use “in” for the names of geographical areas of
land (cities, states, countries, continents).
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Participles
• Use the present (-ing) form to describe when
someone or something produces a result.
• Use the past (-ed) form to describe how
someone or something experiences such results.
• See pages 711-712 for more details.
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Auxiliary verbs
• In the present tense, third person –s endings
are needed on verbs.
• Auxiliary verbs: do, does, did; and have,
has had.
• Use the base form of the main verb with do,
does, and did.
• Use the past participle (-ed) form for have,
has, and had.
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Conditional clauses
• Conditional (if) clauses allow a write to state a
condition and then describe the result. See
pages 682-683 for details on the proper tense
to use to convey the correct result.
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Idiomatic two- and
three-word verbs
• Idiomatic two- and three-word verbs: Refer to
verbs that take on a preposition or adverb, and
change their meaning. Look into the means to
investigate; see page 683 for more examples.
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Logical fallacies
• “A flaw in reasoning that weakens the
legitimacy of a writer’s argument” (683).
• They are to be avoided; however, we see them
used sometimes either intentionally or
unintentionally in political campaigns as well
as advertising.
• Here is a list of nine types of logical fallacies.
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Faulty cause and effect,
false analogy
• Faulty cause-and-effect relationship: Mistakes
a sequence of events for a causal relationship.
• False analogy: Makes the assumption that
because things resemble each other in some
ways, conclusions about one can be applied to
the other.
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Slippery slope
• Slippery slope: Predicts a chain of events
that is seen as unavoidable and catastrophic,
so “if we do X, Y will happen, and we will
be doomed!”
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Red herring, ad populum and more
• Red herring: Something thrown into an
argument to distract from the real issue.
• Ad populum: Refers to arguments that address
bias and prejudice, not reasoning.
• Ad hominem: Refers to personal attacks on an
opponent rather than rational debate on issues.
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Bandwagon, begging
the question, and either/or
• Bandwagon appeal: “Everyone else is doing
it” (used extensively in advertising)
• Begging the question: Refers to assuming
something that needs to be proven.
• Either/or: Reasoning that polarizes people and
issues with the idea that there are really only
two options.
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Student Companion Website
• Go to the student side of the Web site for
exercises, chapter overviews, and links to
writing resources for this chapter:
http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e
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