Success in Academic Writing - Trevor Day 2018
Sentences
Reviewing and editing your work
Sentences, of course, are the building blocks of paragraphs. A sentence normally makes sense on its own, without the need to read surrounding sentences. To be a proper sentence, a cluster of words must also contain a subject and a finite verb.
The subject is what the sentence is about - its focus. In most sentences, it is the answer to the question, ’In this sentence, who or what is performing the action?’ In the following sentences, the subjects are shown in bold in each case:
The nucleus of the cell contains the chromosomes.
Nevertheless, the ancient Egyptians had sophisticated ways of marking the progress of time by tracking objects in the night sky.
The political stance of most UK farmers is conservative, perhaps reflecting their deep connection with the land and traditional social structures.
Abstract art seeks to express features of the visual world but without resorting to conventional representations or notions of objectivity.
The finite verb in a sentence tells us what the subject is doing or expressing. It is called ’finite’ because the verb is limited by the subject, with which it must agree. The finite verb agrees with its subject in terms of number (singular or plural), and person (I/you/she/he/it/we/they), and displays tense (past/present/future). Here, the finite verbs are emboldened in each case:
The nucleus of the cell contains the chromosomes.
Nevertheless, the ancient Egyptians had sophisticated ways of marking the progress of time by tracking objects in the night sky.
The political stance of most UK farmers is conservative, perhaps reflecting their deep connection with the land and traditional social structures.
Abstract art seeks to express features of the visual world but without resorting to conventional representations or notions of objectivity.
Non-finite verbs
There are three other verb forms found in sentences. Unlike finite verbs, they remain the same in form and are not shaped by the subject:
-infinitives, such as ’to go’, ’to feel’ and ’to analyse’
-present participles, ending in ’ing’, such as ’going’, ’feeling’ and ’analysing’
-past participles, such as ’went’, ’felt’ and ’analysed’
Non-finite verbs may or may not be present in a sentence, but at least one finite verb should be.
Writing clear sentences
Having confirmed that your sentences really are sentences, you can make them short or long, or something in between. Short sentences have impact. Longer sentences can gradually develop a train of thought, with one clause building on another, pulling the reader along. In prose writing, a more enjoyable reading experience often comes about through the writer employing sentences of varying length, so changing the rhythm of the prose.
Medium to long sentences can fall down in several ways and become difficult to interpret. Fortunately, there are various devices to counter such problems, including:
✵Getting to the point (introducing the subject early).
✵Keeping a sentence’s subject and finite verb close together.
✵Considering whether to change ’ing’ verb forms.
✵Checking whether pronouns are used appropriately.
Getting to the point
As we have seen, the subject of the sentence is the person or thing on which the sentence hangs. Choosing not to reveal to the reader the subject of the sentence early on can be akin to teasing, and while sometimes it works, more often than not it is annoying. The reader is having to process many words before knowing the subject to which they refer. Here is an example:
By interpreting the colour of seawater, the depth and direction of currents, and the patterns of waves, wind and clouds, ancient Polynesians could navigate hundreds of miles beyond sight of land.
This sentence would be clearer if the subject were brought towards the beginning:
Ancient Polynesians could navigate hundreds of miles beyond sight of land by interpreting the colour of seawater, the depth and direction of currents, and the patterns of waves, wind and clouds.
Of course, transitional words or phrases can be put at the beginning of a sentence to link it to other sentences. But even here, the subject follows as soon as possible. The transitional word or phrase is marked off from the rest of the sentence by a comma:
In comparison to the coast-hugging, medieval seafarers of Europe, Ancient Polynesians could navigate hundreds of miles beyond sight of land by interpreting the colour of seawater, the depth and direction of currents, and the patterns of waves, wind and clouds.
Keep the sentence’s subject and finite verb close together
Sometimes, through a wish to sound authoritative or to pack large amounts of material into a sentence, the subject can become separated from a finite verb. This can make the sentence difficult to decipher, often requiring the reader to read the sentence more than once. For example:
In rugby, two important factors that contribute to robust performance in running, kicking and tackling are muscular strength and power.
To avoid this, bring the subject and main verb closer:
In rugby, muscular strength and power are two important factors that contribute to robust performance in running, kicking and tackling.
ACTIVITY 10.3
Move closer
Consider the sentence below. Find the subject and main finite verb, and bring the two closer to make the sentence easier to read.
Male drivers aged 18-21, because they are more likely to be involved in car accidents for which they are responsible, pay much higher car insurance premiums than their 45-55-year-old counterparts.
Compare your answer with the suggestions given at the end of the chapter.
In longer sentences, check whether ’ing’ verb forms are appropriate
In a long sentence, present participles (verb forms with an ’ing’ ending) may be used to connect clauses to extend a sentence. This can work well for shorter sentences. For longer sentences, ’energy’ may be lost at the point where a present participle is used, and the sentence may also become harder to interpret. In such cases, it is often better to remove the present participle and split the sentence into two or more. For example:
According to commentators writing in the 1940s, Charles Darwin took many years to write The Origin of Species, apparently troubling over how the book would be received by his religious wife, clergymen and the general public, but finally being prompted to publish by hearing from Alfred Russell Wallace, who had arrived independently at similar conclusions about evolution and natural selection.
This long sentence is improved if the present participles are removed so that one sentence becomes three:
According to commentators writing in the 1940s, Charles Darwin took many years to write The Origin of Species. Apparently, he was troubled over how the book would be received by his religious wife, clergymen and the general public. He was finally prompted to publish by hearing from Alfred Russell Wallace, who had arrived independently at similar conclusions about evolution and natural selection.
ACTIVITY 10.4
Shortening sentences 1
Consider the two sentences below. In both cases, find the present participles and split the sentence into two or more to improve readability.
(a)In a normal person, when a blood vessel is breached, platelets at the site of the injury release clotting factors, triggering a ’coagulation cascade ’, resulting in a blood protein called fibrinogen being converted into fibrin, creating a tangled mesh that traps blood cells, so forming a clot.
(b)A shipboard navigation system receiving continuous signals from several overhead global positioning system (GPS) satellites can process them, establishing the identity, locations and time signals of the satellites, and electronically triangulating the ship ’s location to within a few metres.
Compare your answers with those given at the end of the chapter.
Check whether overuse of pronouns (such as ’that’, ’which’ and ’who’) is causing confusion
Longer sentences can become very convoluted when they are scattered with several pronouns (words used in place of nouns). It is often better to dismantle the sentence at one or more of the pronouns. For example, this sentence shows the pronouns in bold:
In his 1609 work,, Mare Liberum, Hugo Grotius promoted the concept of ’freedom of the seas which considered the ocean as an open resource available to all nations, which suited the purposes of European seafaring nations who wished to have access to resources in distance seas, and especially in the Far East.
This sentence reads better when it is split into three, and specific nouns (shown in bold) are introduced to replace the pronoun ’which’:
In his 1609 work,, Mare Liberum, Hugo Grotius promoted the concept of ’freedom of the seas This book considered the ocean as an open resource available to all nations. This principle suited the purposes of European seafaring nations who wished to have access to resources in distance seas, and especially in the Far East.
ACTIVITY 10.5
Shortening sentences 2
Consider the two sentences below. In both cases, find pronouns that could be replaced with nouns to split the sentence to improve readability.
(a)Discovered in 1985, the wreck of the RMS Titanic has since been rusting rapidly by a process involving the action of microbes, and it has also been visited by numerous expeditions, which have stripped the wreck of thousands of its artefacts and damaged its superstructure.
(b)Proteins are made up of one or more polypeptide chains, each containing repeating units called amino acids, which exist in several forms, the precise sequences of which give the protein its specific properties.
In this case, decide how this sentence could be better split into two or three sentences to improve readability:
(c)Near the end of King William Ill’s reign, between the years 1695 and 1701, English copper coinage reached its nadir, with former employees of the Royal Mint being contracted to produce official coinage independently without close supervision with the result that they manufactured coins by employing cheap labour and using substandard copper, improperly processed, with farthings and halfpennies minted using poorly engraved dies so that the resulting coins often had blemishes, omissions and even spelling mistakes.
Compare your answers with those given at the end of the chapter.
This short section cannot do justice to the complexities of sentence construction. We have not, for example, considered where you might wish to place emphasis or weight within a sentence. In the following example it could be argued that the subject and main finite verb are widely apart and ought to be brought together:
In our study many teachers, even though they lacked personal experience of work in industry or commerce, were willing to include business-relevant examples in their subject disciplines.
However, bringing the subject and main finite verb together does change the emphasis within the sentence, and not necessarily for the better:
In our study many teachers were willing to include business-relevant examples in their subject disciplines, even though they lacked personal experience of work in industry or commerce.
For advice about writing clear and powerful sentences, refer to Peck and Coyle (2012a, 2012b) or Copus (2009).