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| Sixsixfive. "Patch Document." 01/10/15 via Clipart. Public Domain Dedication License. |
The first weakness I addressed was my tendency for writing long sentences. For this reason I read the section under clarity titled "wordy sentences." One of the most helpful skills that the text discussed, was the ability to eliminate three or four word phrases by replacing them with synonymous, single words. I believe learning to do this will allow me to communicate my ideas in more concise sentences.
Secondly, I addressed my weakness of redundancy, specifically in a lack of variety of sentence openers. Although I don't use basic sentence openers, I tend to cycle through a select few words or phrases, and use them to open every sentence. A reminder to vary my openers from the book, along with suggestions for other tactics and phrases, was very helpful.
Next, I learned about word omission, something I struggle with, without even realizing it. The most helpful advice the text provided was to read my words out loud, because hearing them can make you realize when the addition of a word, or omission of a word, can change the entire meaning of a sentence.
Finally, I read up on how to eliminate distracting tense shifts. Again, this is an issue I can solve by reading my work out loud. This will be key when I am discussing certain instances in time throughout my controversy, and the position I am speaking for shifts around. Keeping tenses the same throughout will be key to communicating information clearly.
Reflection:
While conducting my peer review I realized that everyone struggles with different aspects of clarity. People all have different things to work on, and learning techniques and having peers point this out is very helpful to being as clear as possible in writing. The only shared struggle of mine in the two drafts I read was wordy sentences, but both had small faults with clarity.
1. As an example of a long sentence I took a portion from Grace's draft.
"It is each person’s decision as to what nursing home they are to be living in and they must do the research to keep themselves and their family members safe.
Although this sentence is not overly lengthy, it struggles with overly long phrases that could be shortened, without losing the meaning of the sentence. For example, "as to what nursing home they are to be living in" could be shortened to simply "the nursing home they will live in."
2. As an example of redundancy I took a portion from Stef's draft.
"In the article Michelle Obama’s ‘Healthy’ Lunches, nutritionists are opposed to the bill. When interviewed they requested, 'strict sodium and whole-grain rules be rolled back, as well as the requirement that kids must take either a fruit or a vegetable with their lunch,' These strict rules lead to the children’s waste. The children are forced to take foods that they do not like, and these foods end up in the trash."
This lengthy portion of text shows up later in Stef's draft, almost word for word the same. This information only needs to be conveyed once, and if it is so important that it should be included again later, the wording and phrasing should be changed, and another quote should be found.
3. As an example of word omission I used a portion of Jon's draft.
"One of these wrinkles is a shady CEO..."
What is omitted in this case is the name of this CEO, and it is omitted throughout the entire draft. A name for the reader to reference the CEO is crucial to clarity, especially as this is not the only mention of the nameless CEO in the draft.
4. Finally, I kid you not, I read through everyone's work who had a draft posted at 09/19/15, and could not find a single example of awkward tense shifts to provide. Hopefully this does not lead to a penalty in points, but I simply couldn't find an outside example from my peers' drafts.
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