How to Improve Your Sentences, Part Three
You may already know how to write sentences that are grammatically correct. You may know how to express a complete thought by means of a subject, a verb, and modifiers. Is there anything more you should learn about writing sentences? Frequently, there is.
Your sentences may be perfectly correct grammatically, yet fail to do the job. The job of a sentence is to say something—to convey facts and ideas. Some of your sentences may say too little. Others may say too much. Still others may be faulty because their meaning is not clear.
The secret of successful writing is revision. One important aspect of revision is a careful check of your sentences. You should make sure that your composition has no sentences that suffer from faulty reasoning and ambiguity. Rewrite those that are padded, repetitious, and dull.
This article will help you improve your sentences. It gives several examples of faulty sentences, followed by suggested revisions. The exercises offer you an opportunity to correct the same kinds of errors. Let this be a challenge to you to think clearly and to write clearly.
REVISING SENTENCES THAT CONTAIN TOO MANY IDEAS
Long sentences containing a number of ideas, usually connected loosely by and’s, are poor and ineffective. They give the reader a whole series of ideas to sort out without any clue as to their relationship to each other. Such sentences violate the principle that a sentence should contain one thought. It is better to break them into shorter sentences.
LENGTHY I went into the tall building and I waited for the elevator in the lobby
and when it didn’t come I had to walk up six flights of stairs.
REVISED I went into the tall building and waited for the elevator. When it didn’t
come I had to walk up six flights of stairs.
LENGTHY Horrible faces glared at me from the shelves in the costume shop. They
were all contorted and most of them were scarred, and they were a
deathly gray with a greenish cast, and their eyes looked almost like
black holes.
REVISED Horrible faces—all of them contorted and some of them scarred—
glared at me from the shelves in the costume shop. Eyes like black holes
looked out from faces that were a deathly gray with a greenish cast.
Exercise: Revise the following sentences by dividing them into two or three shorter ones and by reducing the number of and’s.
1. In my frenzied rush to get the patient’s tray, I failed to notice the sign on the door and I walked in and I noticed the woman was very yellow and suddenly I realized I was in an isolation room.
2. The picnic was a great success and we all started to gather our various belongings and then we started bounding over the sleek, gleaming rails of the tracks which were in front of my home and I tripped over one of the rotted ties and fell into a puddle of oil and I cried because my father had forbidden me to go to the picnic in the first place.
3. One of the Philippine Azkals came up and reached first base on an error, and a sacrifice fly advanced him to second base, and the first Azkal hit of the game drove him home.
4. Wene’s father was the editor of the newspaper and he was told to go to the South for a rest, and Mrs. Melencion had to go with him and Wene was left to take care of a motherless household.
5. Someone told me not to attempt it and now I wish I had listened because I wasn’t at all successful and all the profit I had made before was lost and now I have no money at all.
6. It was a hot summer day in July and the family were sitting on the patio and no one said a word, for the heat was terrific and everyone was exhausted.
7. The traffic down to the shore was very light and we got there in no time at all and it was a lovely day and the sun was hot, the water was delightful, and everyone was enjoying himself.
8. Wolf hunting is not for a boy. It’s dangerous work and the first shot has to count and the hunter has to see the wolf first because the animal won’t wait until the hunter takes time to aim.
9. There was nothing in Raquel’s pocket but a small hole, and Raquel’s eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip and the three girls searched the street, but there was no penny to be found.
10. I always wanted to play tennis, so I decided to try my luck and bought a racket and three balls and talked my father into teaching me the fine points of the game, but I spent most of my time looking for the ball and I became so discouraged that I went back to playing canasta.
11. Chris and I went downtown last night and we went shopping for a dress and Chris bought a beautiful yellow one, and although I intended to buy a green one, I bought a pretty blue dress, and when I came home with the dress, my mother said, “Not another blue one!”
12. The little boy was sturdy and browned by the sun and his blue eyes looked mischievously at a world that was full of interesting things to do, and he decided that the first thing was to race down the driveway on his bicycle while he shrieked like an Indian on the warpath.
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