Note: Your Word Power Drill will include the work with Deadwood, Thesaurus, Embedding, Troublesome Pairs, Wordiness, Be verbs, Specific Words, Dangling Prepositions, Negative/Positive Expressions, and Contractions/Possessives.
When you examined your stat sheet at the beginning of this course, you discovered improving individual words could be shown with a decimal statistic. Exchanging multi-syllable words for single syllable words would increase that statistic and bump your readability level higher. Eliminating single syllable words is not difficult. Why say nice when you can say wonderful. Keep in mind that writing is thinking, but thoughts can be a more powerful thing than language since authors often struggle to put their thoughts into words. Do you need to always use super-sophisticated words to use language powerfully? Do you always need to write in the higher writing level? No! John Steinbeck, a master, wrote on a fourth grade writing level, but because his ideas were so profound, this level allowed average people to understand them and enjoy his writing. Actually, newspapers and magazines are seldom written above eighth grade level unless targeting the upper educated audience, such as the Wall Street Journal or Scientific American. Can you make your writing fit the appropriate level to match the targeted audience? Certainly a college composition would use different vocabulary than a letter to a second grade brother or sister. Becoming masters of words allows movement up or down the writing level at will, so connection is successful with the intended audience. Publishers will not invest in writing that doesn't appeal to the intended audience because it won't sale.
College professors will not give good grades if the writing doesn't match the level of college skills and substance. You must learn to bring your word choices and grammatical construction up to level 10-12 or higher to be effective with the type of information college classes pursue. Having a lower writing level does not mean you are a failure as a writer. It only means you may mismatch and insult your college audience. When you have great ideas, it is to your advantage to be able to express them vigorously. What are some tricks to getting weak words out of compositions? As you read about these tricks, you will practice the given activity and email it in as your Word Power Drill response.
The girl's dress was of pink and yellow. The pink was very pale. The yellow was very bright.
There are eighteen words in these three sentences. Embedding the adjectives into the first one would make it read like this:
The girl's dress was of very pale pink and very bright yellow.
There are now only twelve words total, so six little words have been dropped out without changing any of the message.
Prepositional phrases can also be embedded. I have included the following sentences for you to practice dropping out unnecessary words. This exercise is much like the deadwood page you worked on earlier, except now you have the name of the process and understand what you are doing. If you were good at cutting out deadwood, you will be very good at embedding. Include the rewrites of this page as #2 in your Word Power Drill email response.
1. The girls picked flowers on Sunday mornings. The girls are young. The girls are beautiful. 2. The racers smiled at each other. The racers smiled nervously. The racers were experienced. 3. Anne of Green Gables had red hair and freckles. Her hair was very long. Her hair was very bushy. The freckles were very large. 4. The scrapbook of the woman brought back memories. The memories were brought back nostalgically. The woman was old. The woman was wrinkled. The scrapbook was huge. The scrapbook was faded. The memories were happy. The memories were sad.
5. Mary Ann visited her cousin. She did this in Brooklyn, Maryland. She visited her on Christmas eve. 6. Charley planted lilac bushes. He planted them beside his flower garden. He did this after a quarrel. His quarrel was with his wife.
7. Aunt Sarah dropped her hearing aid. The hearing aid was new. She dropped it into a glass. The glass was filled with tomato juice. 8. There was a teenager. He wore a Dracula costume. He ran through the church lobby. He did this before church started. Church was on Sunday morning.
SPELLBOUND (Quoted by Pennye Harper) I have a spelling checker, It came with my PC; It plainly marks four my revue Mistakes I cannot sea. Eye ran this poem threw it, Your sure reel glad two no. Its vary polished in it's weigh, My checker tolled me sew. A checker is a bless sing, It freeze yew lodes of thyme. It helps me right awl stiles two reed, And aides me when aye rime. Each frays come posed up on my screen Eye trussed to bee a joule The checker poured o'er every word To checque sum spelling rule. Be fore a veiling checkers Hour spelling mite decline, And if were lacks or have it laps, We wood be maid to wine. Butt now bee cause my spelling Is checked with such grate flare, Their are know faults with in my cite, Of none eye am a ware. Now spelling does know phase me, It does knot bring a tier. My pay purrs awl due glad den With wrapped words fare as hear. To rite with care is quite a feet Of witch won should be proud. And wee mussed dew the best wee can, Sew flaws are knot aloud. Sew ewe can sea why aye dew prays Such soft ware for pea seas, And why I brake in two averse By righting wants to pleas.
There are many vivid verbs, but it is more common to use a form of the be verb (am, are, is, was, and were) in newly generated text. Name the fingers of your hand these verbs so that you can remember them. The thumb is "am", the index finger is "are", the middle finger is "is", the lazy finger is "was" and the little finger is "were". Now try to get them out of your writing. "There is" or "There are" is probably the weakest way to start a sentence. For example, the first sentence in this paragraph would have read much better if it had been written, "Forms of the be verbs (am, are, is, was, and were) occur more often in sentences than vivid verbs." Changing weak sentence beginnings and writing-out "Be" verbs make the author sound more skilled. I left a number of these structures in Lessons #1, #2, and #3. Find three of these sentences and rewrite them. Email them as #6 on your Word Power Drill email response. Be sure to tell me which Lesson, page, and line you are rewriting.
Here is a summary of the concept we have discussed so far. Good writers avoid general and abstract terms. Choose specific concrete terms since these terms transfer a vivid pictures into the mind of the reader. Study these ways to improve this skill:
1. Replace passive verbs with vivid verbs: John is a teacher.(Weak) John teaches.(Strong) 2. Add description within the sentence: John teaches university level classes. 3. Replace vague words with precise ones: We had something to eat.(Vague) The four of us devoured the pancakes.(Precise) 4. Substitute names: He liked his car. Harry liked his Buick. 5. Supply lively verbs: The train passed the crossing. (Okay) The express roared past the crossing. (Excellent)
General: The person walking down the path behind the house
cannot help noticing the many spiders and other insects that are present.
Specific: Spiders, large black ones with read markings stretched
their webs across the path to catch the flies buzzing in the afternoon
sun.
General: We set up some improvised tables in the back yard and
prepared them for the picnic.
Specific: After we had laid the planks across the marred,
paint-spattered sawhorse, Mother spread a red-and-white checkered cloth
over the tables we had thus improvised.
General: In the waiting room four people waited for the bus.
Specific: On the beach a sailor had fallen asleep waiting for his
bus. A boy in a smudged T-shirt was pestering his bored mother for a dime.
An old woman was diffidently surveying the two worn suitcases and the
cardboard box standing at her feet.
General: From the edge of the animal's underwater lair made of
wood, a bunch of bubbles rose to the top of the water.
Specific: From the edge of the Beaver's sunken pile of aspen
boughs, a string of small globes, faintly silver, smoked to the top.
Now make your word choices in the following exercise and use as #7 on your Word Power Drill email response.
My Florida-bred (car, Mercury) (moved, slid) from the (road, freeway) on to the (city, Idaho Falls) turnoff, followed the (road, cloverleaf) around, and began the gradual descent of the curving road. (Bad weather, Rain and snow) (was on, clung to) the (window, windshield), dimming my view. I felt the tires (fail to hold, slither) on the (pavement, hidden patches of ice). My numb hands (held, gripped) the (cold, icy) steering wheel. My foot (was near, hovered over) the brake pedal. A (movement, swipe) of the windshield wipers brought a (shape, sign) on the right into view; "Drive Carefully--We Can Wait!" The sponsors? An undertaking firm. "They won't have long to wait," I thought, (pulling, steering) the (car, vehicle) sharply against a (slipping motion, skid). So this is (it, Idaho)"
Early in the course you were assigned to learn the Parts of speech through computer drills. If you are still having a hard time keeping their functions straight, here is a trick that will help you. Think of the Word Family (The Parts of Speech) as having the same functions as a real family. Dad gives the family the name and structure to live within. Nouns are the words that name things and set structure in the sentence just like dad does in the family. Moms can do any job dad can do. Sometimes moms have to be the one to take over and direct just as Pronouns can do any job that nouns can do and sometimes take the place of Nouns in the sentence. Verbs and adverbs are like the teenagers in the family. Teenagers have tremendous energy just as Verbs show the action that is happening in the sentence and the Adverbs add information about the action. Prepositions and Adjectives are like younger brothers and sisters in a family. Younger brothers and sisters have a unique way of knowing everything and being willing to tell it. It is this member of the family that knows what is in every drawer, where everyone else is, and what is in the hidden diary--and they are always willing to tattle. Adjectives give all the description in the word family--size, color, shape, type--while prepositions tell the position of where everything is located--on, in, at, from, behind, above. Conjunctions and Interjections are like the new baby in the family. New babies bond the family together and add color, but little else. However, pulling the family together is a very important function. Joining words, phrases, and clauses together is a very critical function in writing makes conjunctions very important. Try to visualize a graphic of a word family and a real family to help you review how the word family functions similarly to a real family. Be sure to remember the functions of the Parts of Speech as you practice noun, verb, and pronoun agreement. Spend some time with the idea of conjunction turn signals. A graphic idea of a worm in an apple compares Prepositions to what the worm could do to the apple. MLG compares Prepositions to what a rabbit can do to a hollow log. Prepositions are used most often in phrases, so they need objects. A preposition used at the end of a sentence with no object is called a dangling preposition and weakens writing. It is another neat word power trick to catch a dangling preposition at the end of a sentence and change the wording to make the dangler disappear. Here is an example:
Wrong:Where's it at? (dangling preposition = at has no object)Right:Where is it? (preposition at end has been eliminated)
Rewrite these sentences to eliminate the dangling prepositions and use as #8 in your Word Power Drill email response.
1) Which house do you live in? 2) I don't know yet which career I am going into? 3) I wonder which date I will end up going with?
Another word power trick is to express statements with the positive form of yes words and not the negative form of no words. To understand the negative, we have to translate it into an affirmative, because the negative only implies what we should do by telling us what we shouldn't do. The affirmative states directly.
No: Don't plan your vacation until you have the money for it.Yes: Plan your vacation when you have the money for it.
No: Earning a college degree is not possible without
much effort and many hours of study.Yes: Earning a college degree takes much effort and many
hours of study.
Rewrite these three sentences in the affirmative and use as #9 in your Word Power Drill email response.
1) Using a computer doesn't save you time unless you know what you are doing. 2) Never practice grammar skills when you are tired. 3) Be sure not to skip reading any of the Lessons.
Trick number ten is to take a look at words with apostrophies in them. They are of two types: contractions and possessives. Contractions join pronouns to verbs (i.e. He's = He is). Nouns do not contract with verbs. If you used the noun John with the word "is" the result John's would be a possessive meaning John owns something. Do not try to use nouns in contraction (wrong: John'd go if I ask him). In fact, writing is more formal if you don't use contractions at all. College writing is really better without them altogether.
Possessives also use an apostrophe and can be a little tricky.
The common way to make a noun possessive is to add the combination of the apostrophe and the "S" (i.e.= s), but you have to remember something abnormal about the English language. It is not built to accommodate two "s" sounds together, so if the noun already has this sound (or one similar to it such as sh, ch, x), you have to insert an "e" before the "s" to separate the sounds. That is why these plurals look like this: boxes, churches, or wishes. The same thing is true if the noun is already a plural ending in "s". You cannot put two "s" sounds together, so you just add the apostrophe and not the second "s" (i.e. The apples' skin is red). The tricky part of possessives is to judge if the word is already plural. The word child means one, but the word children means more than one. If we are talking about the children's noise, we can use the combination of the apostrophe and the "S" because there is only one "S" sound when the possessive rule is followed. When we think about a girls' team, we have to decide that it would not be a team if there were only one girl, so the word must be appropriately spelled girls'. Mark the correct letter in the following sentences for appropriate contractions and possessives. Use as your #10 Word Power Drill email response.
You will have only these ten responses to Email for Monday's lesson, but there are many other ways to improve word power. The placement of one word can make a huge contrast in your writing. There is a big difference between a foot long and a long foot. The following two fun examples demonstrate that you need to be very careful in your individual word placement to be sure the sentence projects the meaning you intend. Your challenge all your Wednesday writing assignments from now on is incorporating all the word power possible as well as eliminate technical errors. You will probably work the hardest getting the "Be" verbs out of your sentences. It would even be fun to return to some of your earlier writing and add some word power. There is no credit allowed for those assignments already graded, but try the following for fun.
(Optional Fun Assignment): Work hard to learn to write out the Be verb and then run a stat check to see if your writing level has jumped. Usually it does. When we work on sentence power it will jump again even more. If you need me to help you run your stat sheet, let me know. Now read these Fun supplements to show importance of placing the individual word, and then study the additional suggestions for word power with connectives, euphemisms, research introductions, and specifics.ONLY he said that he loved my sister.
He ONLY said that he loved my sister.
He said ONLY that he loved my sister.
He said that ONLY he loved my sister.
He said that he ONLY loved my sister.
He said that he loved ONLY my sister.
He said that he loved my ONLY sister.
He said that he loved my sister ONLY.
I did not say you stole my red banana. (Someone else said it.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (Disputatious denial.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (Disputatious denial.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (I implied or suspected.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (Someone else stole it.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (You just borrowed it.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (You stole someone else's.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (You stole my blue one.)
I did not say you stole my red banana. (You stole something else.)
HINT: Here is a trick to know about CONNECTIVES (transitions).
Connectives are words that signal relationships of ideas--usually conjunctions. Connectives sometimes overlap wordiness as well as each other. Nevertheless, they are useful keys to improving the precision of writing.
GO SIGNALS or coordinating connectives inform readers that they are going to meet another equivalent idea that will continue the same line of thought. Some of these connectives are sequence signals, for they join a number of coordinate ideas.
Examples: first, second, third, etc., in addition, next, similarly, not only...but, moreover, also, furthermore, more than that, at the same time, likewise
CAUTION SIGNALS. A number of connectives tell the reader to read the next point but to get ready to stop and pay especially careful attention to it. These connectives are conclusion and summary signals; they are of vital importance to the reader and are obviously so marked by the writers.
Examples: thus, hence, therefore, in conclusion, consequently, in summation, accordingly, in brief, in retrospect, as a result
TURN SIGNALS. A group of connectives warn readers that they are about to read a different view, an opposing idea, or a change in the direction of the discussion.
Examples: yet, otherwise, on the contrary, in spite of, nevertheless, although, meanwhile, despite, notwithstanding, conversely, on the other hand, however
STOP SIGNALS. Another group of connectives signal the reader to stop and pay careful attention to what follows, for it is of special significance. These connectives appear to reflect a quality of certainty and authority.
RELATIONSHIP SIGNALS. Numerous words and phrases--in fact, some of those already named--are useful connectives to remember as signals that point to relationships of:
Time=finally, while, when, soon Space=beside, there, here Cause/effect=because, since, so that Degree=above all, many, less Condition=if, unless, though
HINT: Euphemisms can offer single-word substitutions which change meaning. Never underestimate the power of an individual word. Consider these examples:
Hint: When doing research students need to use summaries, paraphrase, and quotation. The single verb that introduces these things makes a difference. For example, in the sentence "King ________that the flood might have been disastrous." Filling in the blank with observes, finds, or insists would create different meanings. Keep this list close to help you put your paper together.
AUTHOR AUTHOR INFERS AUTHOR ARGUES AUTHOR IS IS NEUTRAL OR SUGGESTS UNEASY OR writes DISPARAGING comments analyzes claims describes asks contends belittles explains assesses defends bemoans illustrates concludes disagrees complains notes considers holds condemns observes finds insists deplores points out predictors maintains deprecates records proposes alleges derides relates reveals AUTHOR AGREES laments reports shows grants warns says speculates admits sees suggests concedes thinks supposes concurs
Hint: Replace general words with specific ones:No: My FEELINGS intensified with each new insult.
/\
anger, joy, vengeance, hatred, creativity
FEELINGS does not tell what you felt.
It is too general.
No: PEOPLE who exert total control over their wives are
/\ often insecure themselves.
Male Female
/\
Unmarried Married(husband)
PEOPLE does not tell what kind of people.
It is too general.
but, or, yet, so, for, and, nor (BOYSFAN)
Taking information from a other sentences and inserting (embedding) it into a core sentence.
The "BE" verb = am, are, is, was, were
The specific word gives a better picture to the reader.
Spotting them is a clue to where commas are placed. Also, Subordinate conjunctions can be used to sentence combine which is a powerful rewrite technique.
Spot sentences that begin with the word there of this. i.e. This is, There are.
Synonyms (Troublesome Pairs). These words sound the same but have different meanings. Since the computer cannot think, it does not know the meaning is wrong and will clear it if it is spelled correctly. Learn the word pairs.
