Clarity, Part 2

Active Verbs

- Always try to stay in an active structure when righting. Its easily done by using active verbs. 

     Example - Passive - the houses were destroyed by a tornado

                      Active - a tornado destroyed the houses. 

- Always use active voice unless a certain occasion is in need of a passive voice. 

- passive can be used when someone emphasizes the receiver. 

- To stay emphatic keep the subject and the verb out of prepositional phrases. 

Parallel Ideas 

- when stating multiple things or more than too, always make the ideas parallel. 

    Example - phrases with phrases, words with words, clauses with clauses 

- It is mostly to keep a common flow when using a series. Its important to make a series parallel so it doesn't read awkwardly 

- the same goes for when presenting ideas in pairs. When using a conjunction and, or , then , than, the phrase, word, clause after it should match with the structure with the idea that was presented first. 

Misplaced and dangling modifiers 

- if the modifier limits the meaning of a word it should be placed in front of that word

- try not to place clause and phrase modifiers to far away from the verb or word that is being modified because the meaning of the sentence can get skewed 

- always try and keep the sentence in subject to verb to object structure without many included phrases during the sentence 

- to correct split infinitives, try placing the modifier at the beginning or end of the sentence 

Wordy Sentences 

- focus on reducing redundancies. For example don't say someone it employed at walmart and also working a walmart in the same sentence. It's extra words that are not needed 

- dont repite words in sentence unless clarity is needed 

- cut out inflated phrases such as - "along the lines of" or "as a matter of fat" Replace with words like " like" "in fact" or "now, currently"

After going through my essay while paying attention to these four topic, two of them stood out to me. My paper was filled with wordy sentences and misplaced modifiers. When I went back and fixed the mistakes, I was able to read through my paper more easily and clearly. 

Example from my paper 

"The advantage that Overbye has on his argument is the fact that he is very educated in the field of Astronomy."

This is an example of a wordy sentence in my paper. When I say "the fact that he" it makes the sentence drag on. I can change it by also making it an active sentence and cutting out that phrase

" Before the budget cuts, NASA usually launched about 1 mission per year, but with the budget cuts, Overbye stated that “under the new plan, there will be none at all from 2009 to 2012”, meaning that their would be a halt in almost 4 big missions."

I use two modifiers very close to each other. They are usually and about. But because I about I don't need the "usually" before