Forging Sentence Ties That Bind
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Strong writing—writing that moves, directs, and connects
people—conveys thoughts and ideas with clarity and efficiency. Badly
placed words create vagueness and confusion; well-placed ones achieve logic
and unity.
Careful writers join elements that are related in thought and separate
those that are not. Consider the following sentence:
He noticed a glass on the table that was right in the middle.
Was the glass in the middle of the table, or was the table in the middle of
others? Right now we can’t be sure. Let’s return to the
sentence and revise it:
He noticed a glass that was right in the middle of the table.
Better-placed and -related elements give us greater understanding.
In writing for precision, we’ll want to monitor where we are locating
our modifiers. We should order them to express correct and clear relations.
Questionable Logic:
You can take the train and save twenty minutes in traffic en route
to the Madonna concert for just three dollars.
(Is the Madonna concert really three dollars?)
Better:
For just three dollars, you can take the train and save twenty minutes in traffic en route
to the Madonna concert.
(Moving the prepositional phrase establishes a more plausible scenario.)
Questionable Logic:
It was fun to see the marine life in the 500-gallon tank that the
fishers had captured.
(Did the fishers capture a 500-gallon tank?)
Better:
It was fun to see the 500-gallon tank of marine life that the fishers had captured.
(Moving the identified elements makes a well-wed modifying relationship.)
Questionable Clarity:
I want to discuss the edit to the blueprint, which is delaying the
timeline.
(What is now delaying the timeline—the edit or the blueprint?)
Better:
I want to discuss the blueprint edit, which is delaying the
timeline.
(Adjusting the identified element better relates it to the sentence
modifier starting with which, leaving little doubt about the cause
of the delay.)
Questionable Clarity:
She is Nutella d’Angelica, the niece of Cruella de Vil bathing
the Dalmatian.
(Who is bathing the Dalmatian—Nutella or Cruella? And is there
another Cruella de Vil besides this one?)
Better:
She is Cruella de Vil’s niece, Nutella d’Angelica, who is bathing the Dalmatian.
(Apposition of niece and changing the participial phrase to a
non-restrictive relative clause ensure the reader thinks once instead of
twice.)
We also want to watch how we order words in sentences that depend on what
we wish to express.
Examples
All of the team members were not there. (Or do we mean Not all of the team members were there?)
Latissa only spotted two typos. (Or do we mean Latissa spotted only two typos?)
The executives gave their donations to the charity at the event. (Or do we
mean At the event, the executives gave their donations to the charity?
We might also write The executives at the event gave their donations to the charity.)
Our goal as grammatical writers is to make statements and impressions that
glide to and through readers’ minds. By keeping related items
together and placing them precisely in sentences, we make logic and unity
persuasive partners in our mission to communicate.
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