![]() Your audience can not see the cast with the Wonder Woman tattoo that your Grandma is wearing.You might write: “When Grandma pushed on the window with her hand, she broke it.” You know what you mean, but your readers probably do not because: You can see what you are writing and while you are reading. If you are asked to pay attention to your pronoun references, you are probably a visual writer. Check in with a Writing Assistant the University Writing Commons.Do not wait to learn about sentence-level issues because you are having difficulties.Explicit understanding helps prevent insecure guessing. Start with learning the technical side of what makes a complete sentence.Promise yourself that you will take time to learn more about the rules of writing before you leave the university.The sneaky ones are the dependent clauses that begin with subordinating conjunctions (Because, After, When, Since, If, and so many more!). They are easy to catch when you reread your writing. When you know the parts of speech, you’ll notice when you have an incomplete sentence – a sentence fragment. A copy editor follows the citation style and pays attention to grammar and punctuation rules. Copy editor: As a copy editor, you look for errors, and you adjust your writing to disciplinary stylistic conventions (ACS, APA, or IEEE).Are you using cliches or generalizations? Is your language precise and concise? Are you using the right tone? The overall goal is to catch distracting language, examples that are not necessary, and introductory phrases that don’t help you move the sentence in the right direction. Line editor: As a line editor, you focus on how your language is used to communicate your purpose to the reader.When it comes to sentence-level writing, it is useful to think of yourself in two roles: a line and copy editor. You will know how to correct sentence fragments and tell your friends when they are note sure why their professor circled their paper with fragment written all over it.Īs a writer, you play different roles when you write.You do not need to guess why a sentence is complete or not complete.You can edit your sentences if you know the rules for what words can do in a sentence.) to what the reader is used to.There are 8 parts of speech and the two parts that make up a complete sentence are the subject and the predicate.ĭo you remember the parts of speech? Do you know how many there are? Why would this help with your writing? via spell checkers or predictive texting for technical or uncommon terms).Īnother factor is mixing or using a different spelling (British English, American English, text/SMS, leet (e.g. The same goes for abbreviations, slang, accentisms ("Aye, tha' be t'one ah war lookin' fer."), or even pulling in words from other languages ("That is no bueno.").Īnother factor is whether the sentence uses non-standard word ordering, either for poetic effect or for something like Yoda speak ("Go, you must.").Īnother factor is if the sentence uses the incorrect form of a word (its vs it's) or the wrong homophone (their vs they're vs there) or the wrong word (e.g. ![]() electricity vs quantum chromodynamics), the more complex the sentence is to understand. The more of these there are, and the more obscure outside the given field they are (e.g. ![]() "The mouse was getting old, so they replaced it with a new wireless one." - here the context for 'mouse = computer mouse' instead of 'mouse = animal' is only determined at the end of the sentence.Īnother factor is whether it uses specialist words in a given domain (including archaic words), or meanings for the words."She took the lead out of the box." vs "He took the lead in the dance." - also, the first is ambiguous: the metal, or a dog lead? You need to know the context from the previous sentence(s)."The wind up the valley was strong." vs "The wind up toy was old.".The book "All About Reading" was very good.One factor is whether a sentence can have multiple valid syntax trees due to the words belonging to multiple part of speech classifications, or have different meanings within the same part of speech classification. for a specific school grade/age), there are various factors involved. If you are trying to assess how difficult a sentence is to comprehend (e.g. If you are trying to assess the structural complexity of any given sentence, then metrics like you suggested are useful, as is measuring the complexity of the syntax tree or using something like the Flesch-Kincaid metrics. It depends on what you are trying to achieve.
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