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Writing Elegantly
Most of us know clumsy sentences when we hear or read them, but we don’t always know exactly why they are clumsy or possess the skills to fix them. An E-Newsletter reader heard the awkwardness of the following sentence but was puzzled by how to reword it.
The network that this computer is able to connect to contains information that is privileged and confidential.
She may have felt uncomfortable about "able to connect to" because it sounds like a dangling modifier. However, this is just a symptom of bigger problems. The clumsiness is caused by several common writing errors:
*Unnecessary dependent clauses
Get rid of that is/which is, that are/which are clauses whenever possible.
*Extraneous verb phrases
Delete verb phrases that don’t add meaning: is able to.
*Subjects too far away from their verbs
Place subjects closer to their verbs: computer connects, network contains.
*Redundancy
Weed out repetitious words: Confidential and privileged mean the same thing in this context.
Finally, tweak the wording so that the sentence flows:
This computer connects to a network containing confidential information.
For more tips on effective writing, including using specific rather than vague language, active vs. passive voice, and parallel form, click here.
Due to the E-Newsletter's large readership, we are only able to respond to individual English usage questions if submitted through GrammarBook.com's "Grammar Blog." |
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Note to All of Our Weekly E-Newsletter Subscribers
Did you receive our "Welcome" E-Newsletter with the grammar tip about "Its vs. It's" last week even though you are not a new subscriber? That occurred because of an update to our newsletter distribution program. We hope it was a good reminder about the "#1 Grammar Error," but we apologize if it was an inconvenience to anyone.
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 Wordplay
Language Trivia
- "Facetious" and "abstemious" contain all the vowels in the correct order.
- The combination "ough" can be pronounced in about nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
Learn all about who and whom, affect and effect, subjects and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, commas, semicolons, quotation marks, and much more by just sitting back and enjoying these easy-to-follow lessons. Tell your colleagues (and boss), children, teachers, and friends. Click here to watch. |
