So with the holiday and all, I totally forgot to do this on time. Sorry.
This is from the intro to an essay I wrote last year. The instructor told me I used too many prepositions, and to prove this, circled every one on the first page. I was then advised not to use so many. I'm trying to sum up and expand on something that Margaret Atwood told me once in a Q&A after a reading.
Original: That is to say, it seems to me, that the great cultural works of the past not only influence the structure of the present moment, but that also the present moment, informed by the confluence of multiple traditional texts, dynamically alters how individual traditional texts are interpreted. An understanding of this perspective of influence is extremely useful when considering Atwood's own body of work, which can be characterized by nothing if not by her overt intertextual references to, it seems at times, the entire Western canon.
Revised: Because Atwood's body of work seems to intertextually reference most of the Western canon, understanding her perspective on influence greatly informs examinations of her body of work. Her response implies a reciprocal relationship between the present moment and the texts through which that moment is read. Our understanding of the present, naturally, is influenced by the texts we have read, but the meaning we take from texts is also influenced by our present experience.
I started a sentence with 'because,' because I'm usually very hesitant about that, and tried to break up the long strings of subordinate and prepositional clauses. I also used the first-person, which I am usually hesitant about as well. In addition, I reordered some parts so that the end of sentences emphasize my main points, and so that the information has better coherence (because I still remember last week's lessons).
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Here is a passage from the critical writing draft I submitted last week. It comes right after the interview quote from Slavin.
Old: These comments make the rationale for Slavin’s authorial decisions abundantly clear. Because metaphor was able to capture the emotional pain of dealing with a loved one’s illness most clearly and aptly, Slavin literalized the metaphor through a magical twisting of reality in order to translate her experience into language.
After reading Kolln, I paid close attention to my verb choice. Kolln says that a “well-chosen verb not only heightens the drama of a sentence and makes its meaning clear, it also sends a message to the reader that the writer has crafted the sentence carefully, that the idea matters” (145). The verb in the first sentence “make clear” seems wimpy. In fact, the whole construction of the first sentence seems clunky and verbose. In the second sentence, I’ve got that pesky “to be” construction that Kolln warns us not to overuse. And the prepositional phrase “in order to” gives the second sentence what Kolln calls an “ungraceful rhythm” and a “lack of focus” (153). Here’s how I reworked those two sentences.
New: Slavin’s comments elucidate her authorial decisions manifestly. Since metaphor
captures the painful experience of enduring a loved one’s illness so aptly, Slavin exploits the power of metaphor, literalizing it through a magical twisting of reality. Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language.
Old: These comments make the rationale for Slavin’s authorial decisions abundantly clear. Because metaphor was able to capture the emotional pain of dealing with a loved one’s illness most clearly and aptly, Slavin literalized the metaphor through a magical twisting of reality in order to translate her experience into language.
After reading Kolln, I paid close attention to my verb choice. Kolln says that a “well-chosen verb not only heightens the drama of a sentence and makes its meaning clear, it also sends a message to the reader that the writer has crafted the sentence carefully, that the idea matters” (145). The verb in the first sentence “make clear” seems wimpy. In fact, the whole construction of the first sentence seems clunky and verbose. In the second sentence, I’ve got that pesky “to be” construction that Kolln warns us not to overuse. And the prepositional phrase “in order to” gives the second sentence what Kolln calls an “ungraceful rhythm” and a “lack of focus” (153). Here’s how I reworked those two sentences.
New: Slavin’s comments elucidate her authorial decisions manifestly. Since metaphor
captures the painful experience of enduring a loved one’s illness so aptly, Slavin exploits the power of metaphor, literalizing it through a magical twisting of reality. Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language.
Verb Usage and Voice
I am glad I am not the only person who realizes that they do not always "practice what they preach." I also constantly mark up my students' papers with comments such as "poor word choice" and "remove passive voice." In my own writing, however, I find myself using passive voice much too often and picking verbs that do not produce the strong impact that I really want in my papers. Here is an excerpt from my first draft I submitted for workshop as an example:
Proletarian literature uses the focus of the destitute and desperate to show the failings of a capitalist society. One major recurring motif of proletarian literature is violence. Violence is oftentimes used to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.
In this passage, I use the same verb twice in three sentences and the second and third sentences slip into the passive voice for some unknown reason. After reading chapter seven in Kolln, I revised these sentences by picking better verbs and placing the second and third sentences in the active voice. Here is my revision:
Proletarian literature utilizes the focus on the destitute and the desperate in order to demonstrate the failings of a capitalist society. The motif of violence recurs throughout proletarian literature. Proletarian literature often employs violence to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.
In my humble opinion, simply picking more specific verbs and changing the last two sentences into active voice make the passage more focused and more interesting to read.
Proletarian literature uses the focus of the destitute and desperate to show the failings of a capitalist society. One major recurring motif of proletarian literature is violence. Violence is oftentimes used to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.
In this passage, I use the same verb twice in three sentences and the second and third sentences slip into the passive voice for some unknown reason. After reading chapter seven in Kolln, I revised these sentences by picking better verbs and placing the second and third sentences in the active voice. Here is my revision:
Proletarian literature utilizes the focus on the destitute and the desperate in order to demonstrate the failings of a capitalist society. The motif of violence recurs throughout proletarian literature. Proletarian literature often employs violence to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.
In my humble opinion, simply picking more specific verbs and changing the last two sentences into active voice make the passage more focused and more interesting to read.
a...of prepositional phrases
"Awkwardness is not the only problem--nor is it the most serious. The sentence that ends with a long string of prepositional phrases often loses its focus" (Kolln 153).
Chapter Eight was incredibly enlightening to me because I very seldom think about adverbs. Inspired by the epigraph above, I am playing with Kolln's concept of "the proliferating prepositional phrase." I am most guilty of proliferation when writing about theory (dun, dun, dun). I hereby declare war of the word: of. Let's see this in action!
OLD
Walker’s poem, in its dual reliance on a collective Appalachian identity and a rejection of racial limits on that identity, relies on both a collective conception of Appalachian identity and a disruption of that concept.
In its redundancy, the focus of the sentence is lost. Kolln suggests that we pay close attention to which words/phrases are stressed in order to better understand what information is extraneous. Here, I am looking specifically at my repeated use of “of”: “a rejection of racial limits”… “a collective conception of Appalachian identity”… “a disruption of that concept.” First, how else might these phrases be phrased?
NEW
A rejection of racial limits… rejects racial limits
A collective conception of Appalachian identity… relies on the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular
A disruption of that concept… disrupts that concept
Not surprisingly, my revisions rely on strong verbs rather than “a…of” phrases.
NEW
Walker’s poem simultaneously reinforces and rejects the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular.
Of course, now I need a follow-up sentence which justifies that claim more thoroughly!
Chapter Eight was incredibly enlightening to me because I very seldom think about adverbs. Inspired by the epigraph above, I am playing with Kolln's concept of "the proliferating prepositional phrase." I am most guilty of proliferation when writing about theory (dun, dun, dun). I hereby declare war of the word: of. Let's see this in action!
OLD
Walker’s poem, in its dual reliance on a collective Appalachian identity and a rejection of racial limits on that identity, relies on both a collective conception of Appalachian identity and a disruption of that concept.
In its redundancy, the focus of the sentence is lost. Kolln suggests that we pay close attention to which words/phrases are stressed in order to better understand what information is extraneous. Here, I am looking specifically at my repeated use of “of”: “a rejection of racial limits”… “a collective conception of Appalachian identity”… “a disruption of that concept.” First, how else might these phrases be phrased?
NEW
A rejection of racial limits… rejects racial limits
A collective conception of Appalachian identity… relies on the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular
A disruption of that concept… disrupts that concept
Not surprisingly, my revisions rely on strong verbs rather than “a…of” phrases.
NEW
Walker’s poem simultaneously reinforces and rejects the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular.
Of course, now I need a follow-up sentence which justifies that claim more thoroughly!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
A Second Reading from the Book of John
My proposal for this class attempted to outline a thesis of sorts, much the way I might have written it during a rough draft. I didn't copy-paste it into my original paper but I might have, which makes the errors in it more appalling. (My actual paper, thankfully, does not seem to have this type of mistakes in it.)
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether his claims are justified, it brings up the question of how “a new Province of Writing” might be founded. The majority of genre scholarship that I have been able to find so far focuses on the use and adaptation of pre-existing genres; my interest at present is focused instead on the origins of new genres. Fielding’s Tom Jones can serve as an interesting case study not merely because he stands near the beginning of the English novel, but because he frequently interrupts the plot of his novel with musings on the nature of writing, both in general and specifically with respect to genre.
The paragraph is servicable but slips into the passive voice at times when it really doesn't need to. I also sometimes use two words where one would do, saying that "my interest at present is focused" instead of simply saying that "I am interested"; this careless wordiness stems from the fact that I was letting my verbs get lazy, as it were. Worse, the first sentence includes an obscure agent.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether his claims are justified, the question arises just how “a new Province of Writing” might be founded. The majority of genre scholarship that I have found so far focuses on the use and adaptation of pre-existing genres; I am interested in the origins of new genres. Fielding’s Tom Jones serves as an interesting case study because Fielding frequently interrupts his novel with musings on the nature of writing, both in general and specifically with respect to genre.
In addition to the corrections outlined above – which generally make the text tighter – I've also ditched the bit about Fielding's historical situation near the origins of the English novel because I feel that it disrupts the flow of the sentence and is probably not really all that necessary anyway.
why do girls always go for the bad verbs?
Like Sue, I complain bitterly to students about word choice, highlighting 16 instances of "is" in a paragraph and commenting briefly on "strong verbs." Or something equally hypocritical. This fall, writing my personal statement(s), I beat my wordy head against the wall of 500-700 word limits, and usually lost. Some of my excesses are style, but quite a few of them result from poor verb choice. For this exercise, I dug out the very first draft of a statement I abandoned entirely, and tried to reduce a couple sentences by way of using more precise verbs.
OLD: It was obvious in the resulting silence that both of us were thinking the same embarrassed thought: “I thought I was talking to someone like me.” (26 words)
NEW: The resulting embarrassed silence revealed the thought in both our minds: “I thought I was talking to someone like me.” (20 words)
Cutting six words doesn't seem like a lot, but they add up. I don't need "was" or "were," and using a more explicit verb like "revealed" makes "obvious" superfluous. I toyed with leaving "same" in there, but I think the sentiment still comes through without it.
OLD: There’s always a drive to focus on what is not work in our lives, to identify myself as a feminist, as a student, as an intellectual, as a dabbler in fiction, as anything and everything except the one thing which is absolutely necessary to my survival. (46 words)
NEW: I felt pushed to identify myself as a feminist, student, intellectual, or writer; as anything but the identity enabling all the others –my identity as a worker. (27 words)
Nineteen words is a lot. It helped that I made this statement apply directly to me, rather than everyone (who do I think I am, anyway, speaking for everyone?). Aside from that change, though, I don't need "there is" or "the one thing which is," both of which invite me to use six more words to elaborate.
Ch.7: Choosing Verbs
• Base form (infinitive)
• Present tense
• Past tense (-ed)
• Past participle (-en)
• Present Participle (-ing)
I always have trouble with passive voice, so I’d like to focus on that section of chapter 7. However being alerted to my overuse in the past has caused me to notice it more frequently when I’m writing. While reviewing my paper, I found several:
Passive: “According to Bakhtin and Harvey, it has become clear that the reader (listener) is not a static entity.”
Corrected: “According to Bakhtin and Harvey, the reader (listener) is not a static entity.”
The second sentence is much clearer and to the point. Reducing the crowded meaning and length of the sentence allows for a smoother sentence that is much easier on the reader and still gets the same point across.
Passive: “The song was first performed in 1984, however Cohen had been struggling to write the song for at least two years beforehand”
Corrected: “The song was first performed in 1984, however Cohen struggled to write the song for at least two years beforehand”
Just changing the clause in question from passive voice to a simple past tense construction makes the sentence flow better.
Ch. 8: Choosing Adverbials
Adverbial-the term that names function in a sentence.
I use the opening adverbial several times in my paper:
• In order to deconstruct this affect…
• Let’s get back to the…
• In order to further dissect this concept…
I feel that at this stage of writing, using opening adverbials not only helps to guide the reader but it helps to keep me on track as well. It also reminds me where I’ve been and where I’m headed.
I’d like to experiment with the movability of subordinate clauses.
Example: In order to deconstruct this affect [influence], it is necessary to examine some of the ways influence can be established.
Alteration #1: It is necessary to examine some of the ways influence can be established in order to deconstruct this affect.
Alteration #2: By examining some of the ways influence is established, this affect can be deconstructed.
I’m not really too fond of these changes, but there are a great deal of other options I didn’t try. Unfortunately, without the preceding sentence, most of the alterations create dangling modifiers.
• Base form (infinitive)
• Present tense
• Past tense (-ed)
• Past participle (-en)
• Present Participle (-ing)
I always have trouble with passive voice, so I’d like to focus on that section of chapter 7. However being alerted to my overuse in the past has caused me to notice it more frequently when I’m writing. While reviewing my paper, I found several:
Passive: “According to Bakhtin and Harvey, it has become clear that the reader (listener) is not a static entity.”
Corrected: “According to Bakhtin and Harvey, the reader (listener) is not a static entity.”
The second sentence is much clearer and to the point. Reducing the crowded meaning and length of the sentence allows for a smoother sentence that is much easier on the reader and still gets the same point across.
Passive: “The song was first performed in 1984, however Cohen had been struggling to write the song for at least two years beforehand”
Corrected: “The song was first performed in 1984, however Cohen struggled to write the song for at least two years beforehand”
Just changing the clause in question from passive voice to a simple past tense construction makes the sentence flow better.
Ch. 8: Choosing Adverbials
Adverbial-the term that names function in a sentence.
I use the opening adverbial several times in my paper:
• In order to deconstruct this affect…
• Let’s get back to the…
• In order to further dissect this concept…
I feel that at this stage of writing, using opening adverbials not only helps to guide the reader but it helps to keep me on track as well. It also reminds me where I’ve been and where I’m headed.
I’d like to experiment with the movability of subordinate clauses.
Example: In order to deconstruct this affect [influence], it is necessary to examine some of the ways influence can be established.
Alteration #1: It is necessary to examine some of the ways influence can be established in order to deconstruct this affect.
Alteration #2: By examining some of the ways influence is established, this affect can be deconstructed.
I’m not really too fond of these changes, but there are a great deal of other options I didn’t try. Unfortunately, without the preceding sentence, most of the alterations create dangling modifiers.
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