A-manual-for-writers-of-research-papers-theses-and-dissertations

11.5 Give It Up and Print It OutYour last big task is to make your sentences as clear as your ideas allow. On some occasions,you may know your writing is awkward, especially if you're writing about an unfamiliar andcomplex topic for intimidating readers. In fact, you may even feel you've forgotten how towrite clearly at all. You need a plan to revise sentences that you can see need help, but evenmore, you need a way first to identify those that you think are fine, but that readers mightthink are not.We can't tell you how to fix every problem in every sentence, but we can tell you how todeal with those that most often afflict a writer struggling to sound like a “serious scholar,” astyle that most experienced readers think is just pretentious. Here is a short example:1a. An understanding of terrorist thinking could achieve improvements in the protection of the public.However impressive that sounds, the student who wrote it meant only this:1b. If we understood how terrorists think, we could protect the public better.To diagnose (1a) and revise it into (1b), however, you must know a few grammatical terms:noun, verb, active verb, passive verb, whole subject, simple subject, main clause, subordinateclause. If they're a dim memory, skim a grammar guide before you go on.11.1 Focus on the First Seven or Eight Words of a SentenceJust as the key to a clearly written report, section, or paragraph is in its first few sentences, sois the key to a clearly written sentence in its first few words. When readers grasp those firstseven or eight words easily, they read what follows faster, understand it better, and rememberit longer. It is the difference between these two sentences:2a. The Federalists' argument in regard to the destabilization of government by popular democracy arose fromtheir belief in the tendency of factions to further their self-interest at the expense of the common good.2b. The Federalists argued that popular democracy destabilized government, because they believed that factionstended to further their self-interest at the expense of the common good.To write a sentence like (2b), or to revise one like (2a) into (2b), follow these sevenprinciples:Avoid introducing more than a few sentences with long phrases and clauses; get to thesubject of your sentence quickly.Make subjects short and concrete, ideally naming the character that performs the actionexpressed by the verb that follows.Avoid interrupting the subject and verb with more than a word or two.www.itpub.net