Take two sentences you like - put them together - bonus!
Contributed by David Mansfield on 24 September 2006 at 20:34Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor. He doesn't fix my spelling or grammar. He doesn't even write on my paper. I don't know what he wants me to do.
This is not a well-written paragraph. Why not? Before you jump in with "Because this student clearly does not understand minimalist tutoring" or "cuz dave rox!!1!", I will state that I wish to confine this post only to issues of style, not content.
No, the problem with the passage above, stylistically, is sentence structure.
The sentences are all short, producing a choppy rhythm, and they all start with the subject, resulting in repetition. Only one contains a dependent clause ("what he wants me to do" in the final sentence). As a result, the reader can hardly feel overjoyed at reading this arhythmic passage, views on its content aside.
So, what is to be done? (And, for grammar sticklers, calm down; passive vs. active voice is a different blog post.) The simplest approach, in my view, is to combine sentences, and so let me offer a few suggestions as to how one might do so. Ideally, this will be useful in your own writing.
For one matter, when two sentences in a row start with the same subject, that is often a hint that one could combine them. Take the sentences
Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor
and
He doesn't fix my spelling or grammar.
The subject is the same. So we can combine them; for example:
Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor who doesn't fix my spelling or grammar.
or
Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor and doesn't fix my spelling or grammar.
Perhaps more strongly, however, we can combine them to show the precise relationship between the ideas:
Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor, because he doesn't fix my spelling or grammar.
Simple enough. The sentence is not as choppy, and the ideas are connected in the manner in which they ought to be.
Indeed, there are three conjunctions, or groups of them, that are essential to good sentence flow. The first, illustrated above, is "because" and similar conjunctions such as "for" or "due to." These allow for "Idea A BECAUSE Idea B," which is handy.
Likewise, the converse - words like "therefore," "ergo," and "thus" - allows for "Idea A THEREFORE Idea B." For example:
He doesn't even write on my paper, therefore I don't know what he wants me to do.
Again, the sentence is cleaner, and the relationship between ideas is stronger now.
The third crucial group of conjunctions consists primarily of the word "but," with adjunct members such as "however." "Idea A BUT Idea B" is a very useful structure. For example:
Dave Mansfield is a bad tutor, but he doesn't fix my spelling or grammar.
Not only is the sentence a better one flow-wise, we also have a relationship between ideas that was hardly implied in the original passage. So huzzah.
So far this blog post has focused mostly on the use of conjunctions to combine sentences. There are other means - for example, the dreaded semicolon. Used sparingly, the semicolon can be quite effective, particularly when two ideas are closely-related and stated in a similar fashion, as in:
He doesn't fix my spelling or grammar; he doesn't even write on my paper.
Alternately, you can transform one sentence into a dependent clause to attach to another. Thus:
Refusing to fix my spelling or grammar, he doesn't even write on my paper.
or
Because he doesn't even write on my paper, I don't know what he wants me to do.
One must, of course, be careful to avoid dangling participles, as we have here:
Refusing to write on my paper, I don't know what he wants me to do.
This muddles quite profoundly the original idea by placing "refusing to write on my paper," which refers to Dave, next to "I," so that it seems that the writer of the paper is refusing to write on his own paper. This certainly happens - it's called procrastination, often enough - but it's not the issue here. I could offer myriad nonsensical examples of other dangling participles, but the point comes across fairly well here, I think.
Anyway, hopefully this blog post has provided at least a few helpful pointers on how to improve sentence flow and structure by combining sentences. Be back next week for more zany compositional antics.
nlp said
On 24 August 2007 at 15:37Great Job in redesigning. Keep it up.
nlp