Clarity, Part 1

This blog post will address four topics from the "Rules for Writers" in the Clarity section. It's very important to have clear and understandable writing. Below I will be discussing four topic points in the writing process.

Chiroleu, Gilles "L'écrivain" December 21st, 2008 accessed via Flickr
Attribution-Noncommercial-2.0 Generic license

Active Voice

It's important to use active voice over passive voice in writers. You want a sentence to flow and make sense, so you want to drive the subject of the article in a clear and simple way. I agree on this. Sentences with passive voice tend to sound awkward, and it can be unclear as to who exactly did what and when. The subject should be the driving force of a sentence, and if it falls back the sentence fails to have direction.

Make comparisons logical

Comparisons can be a risky business. They can come across as cliche or insightful, depending on their execution. I personally tend to make a lot of comparisons in my writing. It can helpful to break down a complicated subject into more understandable pieces using comparison. Sometimes, however, my comparisons can be a little unclear and can make the explanation more complicated. Being precise with my comparisons can help the clarity of the paper.

Avoid is when, is where, reason, and is because

These words are considered "dead words", because they can kill a natural flow. It will draw the reader away from the main focus of the sentence. I'm guilty of using these at times. They're easy to throw into a sentence without any real thought in a time crunch. Avoiding them does make my writing more smooth and cohesive, so it's better to take the extra few minutes .

Awkward modifiers

Awkward writing has always been a glaring error for me, especially because my father is an editor and always corrected awkward writing. It's very important to word sentences correctly. An awkwardly phrased sentence will immediately stand out to a reader. As I've noted before in an earlier post, I'm a "heavy revisor" and tend to go back and re-write my sentences over and over again until I like the flow.


Reflection:

I read both Evan's and Namratha's quick reference guides and there were little to no issues with clarity for either. For example, Evan's QRG had a sentence that read "The CEO released a statement apologizing for what he and his coworkers had done to the company and for tarnishing its name." This sentence is clear, straight to the point, and makes sense. He followed the conventions perfectly. Namratha performed similarly. "They support the government’s decision, maintaining that the government should have access to the data necessary to protect itself and its citizens" is a well-written sentence that follows all the clarity conventions. I can see issues with clarity and flow in some areas in my paper, so I can use these conventions to improve my writing.