Clarity, Part I

To start off, I'd like to say that writing, and english in general, is not my forte. I struggle with drafting up essays on the spot especially for those infamous in-class essays that were asked of us in high school.

In the following few paragraphs, I will briefly and in concise wording, but in detailed grammar, explain what I learned (in boating school) from reading our class textbook. Drawing from The University of Arizona's "Rules for Writers: Seventh Edition," four topics of writing will be discussed in this post.

Hermann. "Books Education School Literature Know Reading."
03/21/2015 via pixabay. Public Domain Dedication.

First, as I look at previous essays and writings I have created in the past several years, I notice that my word choice is very bland. Reading through the textbook I begin to wonder why I have not gained any further intelligence in the field of writing.

The first topic I looked at was titled, "Prefer active verbs." From this section, I've learned that from now on I must use active verbs rather than verbs in the passive voice, as they lack strength due to the fact that subjects receive action other than performing it. Not that passive voice is bad, it doesn't convey the energy many great essays hold. I want the energy during a University of Arizona basketball game packed into the size of my essays.

The next topic I will explore to better my writing understanding is titled, "Add needed words." From this title I am not exactly sure what they mean by this but I will nevertheless read further into it.

To note, my vocabulary is not quite the library it should be as an honors college student either.

Adding words in the necessary places in place of others is a large issue that I have not taken into consideration. Reading through the chapter pertaining to adding comparison words has enlightened me on the importance of widening a person's vocabulary.

The book enforces the need to make paragraphs logical and complete, something I need to do to make my writing the best it can be.

In earlier drafts of essays or papers, it is unfortunately common for many to construct mixed constructions in their writings, thus confusing their readers. Another topic the textbook covers is the importance to untangle these wordy messes.

Making sure the ideas of a writing runs smoothly is one of the crucial objectives that writers need to heed to. Unlike the previous idea's need to add words to the context, making a sentence the best it could possibly be may have the writer erase portions of the text.

To conclude this post I will bring up the four and final topic I will briefly talk about. Another lesson that may need learning by many beginner writers such as myself is the elimination of distracting shifts, especially when it comes to stating people.

Making the point of view consistent in a writing is essential to creating a work that stays on topic and does not confuse audiences by having them wonder who the context is referring to. Along with staying consistent with people, staying consistent with verb tenses is generally just as important.

In many of my drafts of past essays, I have unknowingly and stupidly used multiple verb tenses in a paragraph and even in a sentence. The textbook stresses the need to "maintain consistent verb tenses." It also asked writers to maintain a consistent mood and voice throughout.

From these four topics I can learn immensely the importance of simple writing, something that I obviously have not mastered. Referring to the class textbooks have helped me become a better writing when it comes to updating my blog with new information on exciting topics.


Reflection: Viewing Trey's blog post hyperlinking his controversy as well as Savannah doing the same in her post, I found a few grammatical errors that I would like to point out.

For Trey, his writings contained some very wordy sentences including the following, "The premise behind building one aircraft for three separate military branches is that the aerial needs of the branches have enough commonalities that one basic design can be altered slightly to accommodate each branch." He has some of the same words in this sentences, repeating himself too often. I suggested that he cut down on the word count as well as finding new word choice.

In Savannah's QRG on her controversy, I could not find as many errors as I did Trey. This is largely due to the fact that a person had already previously edited her article. A large issue I did find was in her title; before she changed it when I pointed it out, her title was very bland and uninteresting. The title originally read, "GMO or GM-No?" I suggested including additional information to help grab an audience's attention. It now reads, "GMO or GM-No? The Story Behind Genetically Modified Food Products, Explained."