[IN-CLASS ACTIVITY] Clarity by Joseph Williams (and Jim Garrett)
Telling stories about characters and actions:
"Once upon a time, as a walk through the woods was taking place on the part of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf's jump out from behind a tree occurred, causing fright in Little Red Riding Hood" (43).
We need to rethink sentence structure, supplementing the notion of a subject and a verb (the most basic components of a sentence) with the concept of characters and actions.
Express main characters as subjects
Express actions as verbs
The Dreaded Nominalization
Often the difference between a clear style and an unclear style is the level of nominalization. Nominalization is the changing of verbs (and adjectives) into nouns, such as making the verb "to know" into "knowledge." This is a natural part of language, but some writers over-nominalize and produce prose like this:
Many colleges have come to the realization that continued increases in tuition are no longer possible because of strong resistance from parents to the high cost of higher education.
This sentence could be rewritten as:
Many colleges realize that continued tuition increases are no longer possible, because parents strongly resist the high cost of higher education.
Finding Nominalizations
Williams offers the following good advice:
Diagnosis:
Ignoring short introductory phrases ("In the meantime," "Although," etc.), underline the first seven or eight words in each sentence.
Look for three characteristics: 1) Sentences that begin not with characters, but abstract nouns. 2) Sentences that take more than six or seven words to get to a verb. 3) Verbs that are less specific than the actions buried in the nouns around them.
Analysis:
Find or invent your cast of characters. (Who is doing the action?)
Find nominalizations that name the actions those characters perform.
Looking for Nominalizations
A few patterns of useless nominalizations are easy to spot and revise. 1. When the nominalization follows a verb, with little specific meaning, change the nominalization to a verb that can replace the empty verb.
The police conducted an investigation into the matter.
The police investigated the matter.
The committee has no expectation that it will meet the deadline.
The committee does not expect to meet the deadline.
2. When the nominalization follows there is or there are, change the nominalization to a verb and find a subject:
There is a need for further study of this program.
The engineering staff must study this program further.
There was considerable erosion of the land from the floods.
The floods considerably eroded the land.
3. When the nominalization is the subject of an empty verb, change the nominalization to a verb and find a new subject:
The intention of the IRS is to audit the records of the program.
The IRS intends to audit the records of the program.
Our discussion concerned a tax cut.
We discussed a tax cut.
4. When you find consecutive nominalizations, turn the first one into a verb. Then either leave the second or turn it into a verb in a clause beginning with how or why:
There was first a review of the evolution of the dorsal fin.
First, she reviewed the evolution of the dorsal fin.
First, she reviewed how the dorsal fin evolved.
5. We have to revise more extensively when a nominalization in a subject is linked to a second nominalization in the predicate by a verb or phrase that logically connects them:
Subject: Their cessation of hostilities Logical connection: was because of Object: their personnel losses.
To revise such sentences, (a) Change abstractions to verbs: cessation > cease, loss > lose. (b) Find subjects for those verbs: they ceased, they lost. (c) Link the new clauses with a word that expresses their logical connection.
That connection will typically be some kind of causal relationship:
To express simple cause: because, since, when To express conditional cause: if, provided that, so long as To contradict expected cause: though, although, unless Schematically, we do this:
Their cessation of hostilities > they ceased hostilities Was because of > because Their personal loss> they lost personnel.
More examples:
. The discovery of a method for the manufacture of artificial skin will have the result of an increase in the survival of patients with radical burns.
-Researchers discover how to manufacture artificial skin -More patients will survive radical burns
If researchers can discover how to manufacture artificial skin, more patients will survive radical burns.
The presence of extensive rust damage to exterior surfaces prevented immediate repairs to the hull
-Rust had extensively damaged the exterior surfaces -we could not repair the hull immediately
Because rust had extensively damaged the exterior surfaces, we could no repair the hull immediately.
The instability of the motor housing did not preclude the completion of the field trials.
-The motor housing was unstable -The research staff completed field trials
Even though the motor housing was unstable, the research staff completed the field trials.“
Revision:
Change the nominalizations into verbs and adjectives.
Make the characters the subjects of those new verbs.
Rewrite the sentence with conjunctions like because, if, when, although, why, how, whether, that.
Locate Characters
Express crucial actions in verbs. This practice requires that you avoid whenever possible nominalization (turning a verb into a noun) which tends to hide the action of a sentence in a noun. Likewise, we should try to locate the "characters" of our sentences as the subjects of our sentences whenever possible.
Consider these sentences from Williams:
There were fears that there would be a recommendation for a reduction in the budget.
The fear on the part of the CIA was that a recommendation from the president would go to Congress for a reduction in its budget.
The CIA had fears that the president would send a recommendation to Congress that it make a reduction in its budget.
The CIA feared the president would recommend to Congress that it should reduce its budget.
Which is clearer and why?
Finding and Relocating Characters
Williams offers this advice:
Look at the beginning of sentences (the first six or seven words after any short introductory phrases). Your readers are likely to have a problem if they don't see a character as a subject.
If your sentence begins with abstractions, look for the "real" characters of the sentence. They may be in possessive pronouns attached to a nominalization, in objects of prepositions (especially by and of), or even implied in an adjective.
Skim the passage for important actions, particularly those buried in nominalizations, then convert them to verbs, and make the relevant characters their subjects.
Finally, reassemble the pieces into sentences, making use of subordinators (if, although, because, that, when, how and so on) to tie the parts together.
Abstractions as Characters
Sometimes it is easy to find and reconstruct the missing or hidden characters. For example, it might be easy to fix the following sentence:
The revision process has been the object of discussion.
We have discussed the revision process.
Sometimes, though, there are no flesh-and-blood characters around which to build our sentences. For example, what is the "character" in the following sentence?
Privacy protections have not kept pace with technology, and some even argue that they have been eroded by technology and by a court system dominated by prosecutors.
As Williams points out, a character is not just a person, but whomever or whatever you can tell a story about.
The Passive Voice
Most writers have been told at one time or another to not use the passive voice, because it is an indirect way of writing and it seems to encourage an impersonal tone. However, sometimes the passive voice is necessary. In addition, we should not assume that writing with characters and actions requires us to avoid the passive.
Choosing Between Active and Passive
Williams identifies three questions that you must ask yourself when considering whether the active or the passive is most appropriate:
Must my readers know who is responsible for the action?
Sometimes we don't know who is responsible for the action, sometimes we can assume our readers don't care, and sometimes we know but we don't want them to know.
Would the active or the passive verb let me arrange words in an order that helps my readers move smoothly from one sentence to the next?
Sentences often begin with old information and then introduce new information. The old information is often carried over from the previous sentence. Sometimes using the passive allows you to shift the old information to the front of a sentence. Williams claims that this is the main reason for the passive.
Would the active or passive create a consistent and appropriate sequence of subjects representing characters that I want my readers to focus on?
Readers follow the flow or sequence of your thoughts when you use a consistent set of characters. Sometimes the passive allows you to shift an important character to the subject position of the sentence.
Other Issues
The "Objective" Passive--science writing
Metadiscourse: writing about writing
Compound Nouns--breaking them up into prepositional phrases
The Professional Voice--Writing as Social Responsibility
Delete Metadiscourse
Metadiscourse is the language we use to refer to our own writing or to the act of reading that our writing occasions. In other words, metadiscourse refers
to what we do as writers: to sum up, candidly, I believe, therefore, however
to what we want our readers to do: note that, consider now, as you see
to what we intend our text to do: first, second, finally
We need some metadiscourse in almost everything we write, but some writers use so much that it buries their ideas:
The last point I would like to make is that in regard to men-women relationships, it is important to keep in mind that the greatest changes have probably occurred in the way men and women are working next to one another.
Most of this sentence is metadiscourse. Eliminating the metadiscourse and rewriting the rest leaves us with the much clearer sentence:
Men and women have changed relationships most in the way they work together.
In cutting metadiscourse remember not to go too far. Some is necessary, but certain types can usually be safely eliminated. For example, metadiscourse that announces your topic, such as this section introduces, the first thing to say, in this essay I will discuss, or describes structure, such as in conclusion, first, second, finally, can be deleted without any loss of meaning.
EXERCISES
Rewrite the following sentences by optionally changing the passive verbs (in bold) into active verbs, and optionally changing the active verbs (in italics) into passive verbs. (Passive verbs can be identified by the [to be] + [past participle] form--the first part of this sentence begins with a passive verb.)
Independence is gained by those on welfare when skills are taught that the marketplace values.
In this article, it is argued that the Vietnam War was fought to extend influence in Southeast Asia and was not ended until it was made clear that the United States could not defeat North Vietnam unless atomic weapons were used.
To rewrite the following sentences begin by unpack the compound nouns ([noun] + [noun] + …) into prepositional phrases and edit by placing characters in subjects and actions in verbs. (You may need to invent characters such as I, we, they, etc.)
Enforcement of guidelines for new automobile tire durability must be a Federal Trade Commission responsibility.
This paper is an investigation into information processing behavior involved in computer human cognition simulation.
https://sdsuwriting.pbworks.com/f/Style_BIG_COLLECTION_COMPILED.doc
