Clarity, Part 1

In this blog post I will be exploring prefer active verbs, needed words, variety, and wordy sentences. I will be writing about what I learned about them from the book after reading the topics on them. I also will be exploring how much I already knew about them. 

Amanda Morin "Clarity" August 23, 2009 via Flickr. Attribution ShareALike 2.0 Generic License . 

• Prefer active verbs

I have used prefer active verbs all throughout my schooling years, I may not have used them as frequently as I should've. They are very logical, making whatever being said flow easier and they makes phrases more concise. For me the challenging part with prefer active verbs is knowing when to use the passive verb versus when to use the prefer active verbs. Something I will keep in mind when i'm unsure whether I need to use the passive or not is that if I wish ti emphasize the receiver of the action or to minimize the importance of the actor. If this is the case I will use the passive This rule is something I did not know so it should help me moving forward.

• Needed words

With needed words, I find myself placing them in already. I think this also a problem that I already have as well. I put the needed words in too often and make my pieces of writing too wordy. This section instructed me when to use them. By knowing when to actually use the needed words I won't make the mistake of placing them in when they are unnecessary. What I learned was that I should add words to comparisons in order to make them logical and complete. This actually make sense when you think about it because you have two things that you are comparing. 

•  Variety

For as long as I have been writing I have always struggled with finding different ways to begin sentences. One way to do this is write a sentence then flip it putting the end towards the beginning. This is more properly known as moving adverbial modifiers. Another thing to try and do is switch up the types of sentence structure you are using. Try having a variety. To help myself improve on this I will need to pay more attention to putting variety in m writing as I'm writing it. 

• Wordy sentences

One of my biggest problems with writing has always been run on sentences or sentences that are too wordy. I do not have a spectacular vocabulary so I think that I add more words in to compensate for that. One way I have learned from this book to change that is to make the fewer words you use more important or meaningful to the sentence. For example, instead of saying "Our fifth patient, in room six, is a mentally ill patient" you would say "Our fifth patient, in room six, is mentally ill." It is saying the same thing but the shorter, more concise version flows better.

Reflection: 
While reading the QRGs of Allison and Mathias I realized that we make similar mistakes. I think that this is a trend among students and may be because of how and what we learn in the education system. The trend that I picked up on the most was long sentences due to wordiness. They both did a good job with prefer active verbs. They also did a good job with needed words. When it comes to variety there is always room to improve but they did good with what they had. 

An example of a wordy sentence in the QRG of Mathias was "However, shortly after Froome’s victory, certain data was leaked, without his consent, on Twitter, that matched video footage with information on Froome’s bodily and physiological functions during his cycling." This sentence was very long, being broken up with multiple commas and was slightly wordy. Mathias could have said "After Froome's victory data was leaked on Twitter without his consent. The data matched video footage on Froome’s bodily and physiological functions ." This approach takes out a lot of the filler words that were not necessary.

Allison did something similar in her QRG. She wrote "While the APA still values and stands for the well being of all humans, it is possible that during the low point of APA governance, and the terror the America felt, they moved their values more towards helping the government; even if that meant going against their own code of ethics to do so." I viewed this as very wordy and somewhat confusing due to it's length. I found that there were unnecessary words like "it is possible that" and "they moved". A more direct approach would have been more suitable and it would have made it more clear.