Clarity, Part 2

In this blog post I will review more of the topics for clarity as I self-edit my QRG. I will share what I find interesting,new, and surprising about these topics and how I how I use and can improve them in my wriitng. 

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Add Needed Words
Just like its name suggests, needed words are words that need to be included in a sentence to make the sentence grammatically correct, or for the sentence to make sense when it is read. For the most part, the categories are self-explanatory and centered around basic grammar.

However, there are some ideas that the Rules for Writing pointed out that I have struggled with in my writing. For example, when using compound sentence structures, words can only be omitted if they are common to both parts of the sentence.

Because I wrote about a controversy, I talked about the same points from different perspectives many times. Because of the similarity in ideas, I found the sentences would share some similarities as well. To make the text easier to read I made sure that if I used a compound sentence structure that all the words were present that would make the sentence make sense.

Provide some Variety 
I find in my writing I have difficulties keeping the beginning of the sentences different, and everything begins to feel very repetitive. I liked that the textbook gave suggestions on how to vary sentences to escape the repetitiveness.

One technique that I will implement is to invert the sentences occasionally. By inverting some of my sentences I think it will change the order of my sentences which will help them be less similar. Because of this slight difference I can improve the variety in my QRG.

One example of where I inverted a sentence was when I changed "This instance brought the fight over GMOs back into the spotlight," to "As a result the fight on GMOs returned to the spotlight." I felt this sentence needed to be changed as the second sentence in the previous paragraph is written very similarly and I thought the two sentences were too close to be as similar in structure as they were.

Choose Appropriate Language 
The biggest thing that I took from the appropriate language section was to make the diction special to the audience that the text is written for. From an earlier blog post we discussed how important it is to identify the audience. One reason for that is to make sure the types of words used are suitable for the people who will be reading it.

One example where I had to ensure the language I used was appropriate to my audience was in the following example, "But, opponents are worried that if these fish escape to ecosystems, the fast growing salmon will exhaust the food supply killing off the natural fish." This sentence simplifies the actual events that would take place, but it describes the main points without all the technical language. 

Find the Exact Words 
The Rules for Writes warned against using too many cliches, idioms, and words whose connotations you are not familiar with. Dictionaries and thesauruses should be used to help find the right words, not to replace every word in a piece of writing.

Because my topic is a science topic I found there was not many instances where I would have used an idiom or cliches to help describe the information I was trying to communicate. This helped me realize that I used words whose definitions were clear, and as a result my QRG is easier to understand.