English 105 (Smart) February 2, 2006

Grammar & Flow1: Characters & Actions

taken/adapted from J. Williams (2000) Style, 6th Ed.

“Grammar” is a word used for different purposes by different groups. Grammarians employ what is called prescriptive grammar, telling what language usage is right and wrong. Linguists typically follow more descriptive line, seeking to understand and explain how a language works.

There are three kinds of correctness:

  1. Some rules that define the fundamental structure of English: articles precede nouns: the book, not book the. These rules are rarely intentionally violated by native speakers of English.
  2. A few rules distinguish standard speech/writing from non-standard: you were versus you was, I don’t know anything versus I don’t know nothing. The only writers who consciously strive to follow these rules are those striving to join the educated class. We mostly notice these rules only when others are violating them.
  3. Finally, some grammarians have invented rules they think everyone should observe. Most date from the last half of the 18th century:

-Don’t split infinitives, as in to quietly leave

-Don’t end a sentence with a preposition, as in Who are you talking to?

-Don’t use between with three or more, as in between the three of us

-Don’t use hopefully for I hope, as in Hopefully, it won’t rain.

While understanding how a language works and how to use the conventions of the educated class is helpful in a college career, this knowledge does not typically make your writing more interesting or clearer. And, in general, many writing guides give pretty useless advice on how to write clearer or more interesting sentences. They suggest making your writing direct, concise, flowing (and to avoid being unclear, indirect, wordy, confusing, abstract, etc.), none of which is very helpful. So, here is the first technique to make your sentences “flow”

1. Make your characters act: Every story needs characters and actions. This one has several problems:

Once upon a time, as a walk in the woods was taking place on the part of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from behind the tree occurred, causing fright in Little Red Riding Hood.

This reads terribly. Why? First of all, identify the subjects and verbs of the sentence. And who are the characters and what are the actions? Now, revise the sentence so that the characters are the subjects and the actions are the verbs.

Ok, changing from fairy tales to academic writing, read the following excerpt. The principles and problems are the same as in a fairy tell: even the most abstract sentence has some story to tell:

The Federalists’ argument that the destabilization of government was the result of popular democracy was based on their belief in the tendency of factions to further their self-interest at the expense of the common good.

This sentence seems to be a struggle to get through. We can make it more understandable if we revise it to make its subjects characters and its verbs actions:

The Federalistsargued that popular democracy destabilized government, because theybelieved that factionstended to further their self-interest at the expense of the common good.

Rewrite the following sentence to make the characters the subjects and the actions the verbs:

There is opposition among voters to nuclear power plants near population centers because of a widespread belief in their threat to human health.

2. Revise nominalizations. If you express your actions as verbs, your sentences will seem clearer. If your writing seems too impersonal or abstract, you have almost certainly used too many abstract nouns, particularly nouns derived from verbs and adjectives, nouns ending in –tion, -ment, -ence. Such nouns have a technical name: Nominalizations (a word illustrating its own meaning).

VERB > NOMINALIZATIONADJECTIVE > NOMINALIZATION

discover discoverycareless carelessness

resist resistancedifferent difference

react reaction proficient proficiency

Some nominalizations are identical to their corresponding verbs (e.g. request, return)

Here are several verbs, adjectives, and nominalizations. Turn the verbs and adjectives into nominalizations and the nominalizations into verbs and nouns:

Analysis / Believe / Attempt / Conclusion / Emphasize
Suggest / Approach / Comparison / Define / Discuss
Explanation / Expression / Failure / Appeal / Acquisition
Improve / Decrease / Accuracy / Careful / Intelligence
Important / Decide / Explicit / Precise / Evaluate

Now write 5 sentences using in each of them some of the verbs and adjectives from above. On a separate sheet of paper, rewrite those sentences by using the corresponding nominalizations to express the same idea. Give the sentences with nominalizations to a classmate and see if she/he can revise the sentences.