Clarity, Part 2

A Return Visit to the Clarity Section

In this post, I provide my reactions and lessons from reading through my Quick Reference Guide draft following my readings of the Clarity section from Rules For Writers. I decided to read the chapters on Active verbs, Shifts, Emphasis, and Wordy Sentences. From there, I revisited my QRG draft and applied the readings to my writing.

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I feel that this time around in performing the Clarity exercise, I chose topics which much more adequately speak to me as a writer in need of improvement. While I don't think that I needed much advice from the reading in crafting well-emphasized sentences or in ensuring proper shifts in my writing, I believe that I really benefited from the reading's chapters on active verbs and on wordy sentences.

Yaoxue called his project a work in “transparent computing,” one of two that he has been developing in his time since he left the education ministry in China in 2011, and it was selected to win one of China’s most prestigious science awards in natural science.

The above sentence was extracted from my Quick Reference Guide, and I chose it to illustrate how I needed help with active verbs in my writing. In this sentence, I used "it was selected to win" in the place of the project doing the winning, making it the subject of the verb rather than the object which received the selection to win the award. Even in describing it, this sentence becomes awkward and lacks flow, so in my revision of the sentence I simply reworded the latter half of it so that the MetaOS project won China's most prestigious science award in natural science, which is more direct and effective writing.

Some individuals do not think that the project is any more than an elaboration on cloud software and remote-desktop systems, which has cultured skeptical opinions on the merits of the project which won the distinguished award.

Lastly, this sentence demonstrates evidence that I definitely have some wordy sentences in my writing. In my academic career, I've always struggled with wordy sentences, so I actively try to avoid them. Yet in writing a massive body like a QRG, I suppose I was bound to have a few. In this sentence, I included a redundant phrase at the end, which is not only redundant in that I mentioned the project earlier in the sentence, but in context I also stated that the project won the award. I simply removed the last phrase to help the sentence stay manageable and not awkward.

I honestly believe that I have improved my QRG in revising it for active verbs and wordy sentences!