Revision Assignment - Readability

Princesleah Aguilera WRIT 3330 11 April 2018 RA #5 – Readability Step one: In 26 concise sentences, briefly paraphrase all 26 of Trimble’s readability tips.

1. ¼ of your sentences should be short if ¾ of your sentences are long.

2. Use contractions when natural in communication and when you want to humanize the sentence.

3. If a clause is restrictive, you would use “that,” but if the clause is unnecessary you would use “which.”

4. Use “I” when you want to say I, use “we” and “our” when referring to the reader and yourself, use “one” when meaning one person, and use “you” when referring to the reader alone.

5. Use dashes to isolate concluding phrases.

6. Quote, don’t paraphrase. Use the dialogue when you feel your writing needs it.

7. When presenting abstract ideas use illustrations, analogies, vivid quotations, metaphors, and similes to help your reader understands.

8. Try not to use too many adjectives, they are the enemy of the accurate noun.

9. Minimize your adverbs, an active adjective usually helps more.

10. Write fewer and simpler words. Serve the reader, don’t solely impress them.

11. Fluidity. Connect consecutive sentences.

12. Summarize your argument so the reader keeps up and sees the steps in the argument.

13. When you ask your reader a question, answer it promptly.

14. Semicolons reduce choppiness in a group of sentences with parallel structures.

15. Read your work out loud. If you can’t read it neither can your reader.

16. Instead of “first” and “second” use numerals in parenthesis.

17. For numbers, if it’s a one-digit number write it out.

18. When beginning a sentence with “And” and “But” don’t put a comma after.

19. Yet and so are good sentence starters that don’t need commas.

20. But is better than “However,” it’s cleaner and swifter.

21. Let yourself be fun with your prose.

22. Use variety with paragraph size and use your bridge sentence to forecast your next paragraph.

23. If you need to shift from one large section to another, skip four spaces.

24. Make our title accurately descriptive.

25. When you’re having an issue with wording, talk it out then write it out. You simplify when you speak.

26. Let yourself try again. Take a step back, read another author’s work, then try rewriting.

Step two: In the same document, compile (by retyping) ten sentences of published sentences that exemplify a violation of 10 of those tips. Provide the author’s name, the title of the work, and the date of the publication.

1. If romance is the goal and a meal is one of the vehicles to get there, be aware that the food is just one component of the meal. Another component, such as flowers, can speak volumes. a. This violated Tip 11: Fluidity. Connect consecutive sentences. They spoke of the same subject but weren’t as fluid as they could be. b. From “The Everything Cooking for Two Cookbook – 300 creative ideas for making relaxing meals at home” by Dave Poran on copyright date is 2005.

2. As the June 5 primary approaches in Montana, where the State Constitution decrees that the right to bear arms “shall not be called in question,” even those Democrats who have expressed deep misgivings about the N.R.A. appeared eager to show that they are not anti-gun. — “We love our wildlife, and we love a good elk burger,” Ms. Williams said.

“That’s different than things that threaten our kids at school.” a. This is violating Tip 5: Use dashes to isolate concluding phrases. The quote at the end could have been separated by the dash and been visually seen better by the reader. b. From “In Red-State Races, Democrats Seek an Edge by Defying the N.R.A.”

by Alan Blinder on April 11, 2018.

3. Raster (or bitmap) images are described by an array or map of bits within a rectangular grid of pixels or dots. Vector images are described by lines, shapes, and other graphic image components stored in a format that includes geometric formulas for translating the image elements. Vectoring and image works to not distort or pixelate the image that you want to work with like it usually does when you simply expand it on your computer. a. This violated Tip 7: When presenting abstract ideas use illustrations, analogies, vivid quotations, metaphors, and similes to help your reader understands. They presented diagrams in the documents but did not help the reader better understand what raster and vector are. b. From “Raster & vector” by company Adobe Photoshop on August 22, 2016.

4. Often, the bad writer feels they have a particular story they want to tell. Until they’ve told this particular story, they feel they can’t move on. But because the material is so close to them they can’t mess around with it enough to learn how writing works. — Ultimately, they won’t betray the material. a. They are violating Tip 1: If ¼ of your sentences should be short if ¾ of your sentences are long. It is a constant long-sentenced paragraph that should be better formatted to not scare the reader. b. From “What makes bad writing bad?” by Toby Litt on May 20, 2016.

5. “Judging the internal temperature of a piece of meat or fish is easy without a thermometer.” a. They violated Tip 9: Minimize your adverbs, an active adjective usually helps more. It was a wordy sentence with no action and even more adverbs and prepositions/gerunds. b. From “The Everything Cooking for Two Cookbook – 300 creative ideas for making relaxing meals at home” by Dave Poran on copyright date is 2005.

6. (1) head northeast on Willowrun Dr. toward Willowrun Cove. (2) Turn right onto Woodard St. a. They violated Tip 16: Instead of “first” and “second” use numerals in parenthesis.

They were presenting the directions as first, second, etc but would have made the design more fluid with numbers instead. b. From www.mapquest.com, I was printing out directions so didn’t exactly have an author or publish date.

7. But late in the day, as the last speaker was about to take the floor, a bizarre figure strode up to the podium carrying a briefcase and a bag. a. They violated Tip 20: But is better than “However,” it’s cleaner and swifter. The first sentence used “Late in the day, however,” unnecessarily elongating the first sentence. b. From “The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda” by Gerard Chailand and Arnaud Blin on copyright date 2007.

8. Titling the next subsection in the introduction as “Terrorism as a concept” a. The authors violated Tip 23: If you need to shift from one large section to another, skip four spaces or even given the section a title. They just kept going through a subject change and the reader would have been confused. b. From “The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda” by Gerard Chailand and Arnaud Blin on copyright date 2007.

9. Critically, with a later school start time the percentage of participants whose self-reported sleeping time on weekdays was at least eight hours -- the amount generally considered appropriate for adolescents -- increased, from 6.9% to 16%. a. They violated Tip 17: For numbers, if it’s a one-digit number write it out. They had “eight hours” written as “8 hours.” b. From “Later school start times really do improve sleep time” by Oxford University Press USA on April 10, 2018.

27. Paper wallets are a piece of paper with your public and private keys printed on it, so it's not getting hacked into, in theory, they should be more secure. a. The author violated Tip 10: Write fewer and simpler words. Serve the reader, don’t solely impress them. They over explained the concept and didn’t make it clearer. I had to pick out what information from the entire paragraph to make the sentence above. b. From “How to Buy Bitcoin and Where” by Steve Florillo on April 9, 2018.