Before you publish

SUNATA 38

Wendy Johnston

Director of Marketing and Communications

BEFORE

YOU PUBLISH

In the event that you have opportunity to write an article for publication, there are several handy tips that can be utilised by you to ensure that your writing is fresh and engaging. If you have the chance to be published, these handy tips will ensure your writing is fresh and engaging. See what I did there?

I have shortened a sentence but kept the same meaning. Some phrases in the first sentence are redundant and can be substituted for something simpler; for example, ’In the event that’ for ‘If’. Even Microsoft Word will underline this in a broken red line and ask you to ‘Consider using concise language’. Consider also minimising nominalisations, such as publication and utilised, and where possible, avoid passive voice, as in ‘there are several handy tips that can be utilised by you’. This article looks at five simple ways you can recharge your writing for maximum engagement.

Nominalisations

A nominalisation is a word derived from a verb or adjective (Petelin 2016). In the first sentence of this article I have used the noun ‘publication’ derived from the verb ‘publish’ and the noun ‘utilisation’ derived from the verb ‘use’. Nominalised verbs end with suffixes such as -ion, -ment, -al, -ance and many more. For example: Teachers came to an agreement that it could be beneficial for students to experience failure. Where possible consider using the verb form. For example: Teachers agreed that students could benefit from experiencing failure. Note that failure is also a nominalisation; it’s not necessary to banish them completely. However, nominalisations are heavy nouns that will drain energy away from sentences. They ‘hide the real action’ (4Syllables n.d.), so look for opportunities to swap them out. Nominalisations also lead to other problems such as passive voice, heavy reliance on ‘to be’ verbs (considered ‘weak verbs’) and too many prepositions. More about those later.

Expletives

There are expletives and there are expletives. When we are not talking about swear words, an expletive in grammar means a filler, having its origin from the Latin word expletivus, meaning to fill out or occupy space (Ladict 2021). Expletive pronouns include ‘It is/there is/there are’ and ‘It was/ there was/there were’.

In these following examples you can see how expletives delay the main point of the sentence. There is a tendency in some organisations to overuse capitals. vs Some organisations overuse capitals. There are likely to be many students asking questions about the assignment. vs

Many students will ask questions about the assignment. On their own, expletives have little or no meaning, serving only to take up space. They are to be avoided if possible or Avoid them if possible!

Strong action verbs

Littering your writing with flowery adjectives and heavyduty adverbs will not necessarily lead to more descriptive, evocative prose. William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, dismisses most adverbs and adjectives as 'clutter,' while Mark Twain exhorted readers to 'kill' any adjectives they could catch (Jump 2013). Use fresh, vivid verbs as the engine of your sentences (Gwynne 2021). Consider these two very simple sentences.

The winding river flowed to the sea. vs The river meandered to the sea.

He looked at his rival angrily. vs He glared at his rival.

Stronger action verbs do the heavy lifting, negating the need for additional adjectives or adverbs, leading to more powerful and succinct sentences.

The verb ‘to be’ – encompassing am/is/are, was/were, has/have – is considered weak in many cases. It leads to what Ros Petelin (2016) describes as ‘is-ness’. For example:

The intention of the tax office is to audit their records vs The tax office intends to audit their records. The rewrite disposes of the heavy nominalisation intention, replacing it with the verb form intend, which negates the need for the weak ‘to be' verb ‘is’ (p. 82)

Passive Voice

Use of passive voice is not a grammatical error but could be one of the deadly sins of clear and succinct writing, depending on context. There are occasions where it is necessary or useful to use passive voice, but generally, active voice makes for a punchier sentence. Take this example: Why did the chicken cross the road? vs Why was the road crossed by the chicken? A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence.

So, the chicken is the subject in the first, more familiar, sentence, which is in active voice. In the second sentence the chicken is moved into the object position and the road (the previous object) becomes the subject. This is now in passive voice. The most common way to identify passive voice is a form of the verb ‘to be’ and the past participle. In the above example this construction is ‘was crossed’. The subject may not always be in the sentence, so you won’t necessarily identify passive voice by seeing ‘by xxxxx’. Take this example: Her house had been invaded.

To reconstruct this into active voice you would need to identify the subject. For example: An angry mob had invaded her house. This also serves to clarify what is happening (if in fact you know who had invaded her house).

Prepositional Podge

'Piled up connectives grow like weeds if you don’t pull them' (Kane 1988, p. 207). Strings of prepositions are also referred to as ‘of-ness’ (Petelin 2016) or 'prepositional podge' (Sword 2016). Take this example from Wordvice (2020): The focus of this project was to study the effects of increased global temperatures on local fish hatcheries. (18 words) vs This project examined how increased global temperatures affect local fish hatcheries. (11 words) If you had a page of similarly structured sentences, think of the words you could delete and the clarity you could gain!

References

4syllables n.d., Verbs: Nominalisations cheat sheet, viewed online 2 June 2021, https://4syllables.com.au/resources/verbs-nominalisationscheat-sheet Grammar Monster n.d., What are Weak Verbs? (with Examples), viewed online 1 June 2021, https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/ weak_verbs.htm Gwynne, A 2021, The University of Queensland WRIT7150 Advanced Writing – Grammar, Syntax and Style, Semester 1, 2021, Lecture Powerpoint slides, viewed 1 June 2021, https:// echo360.org.au/lesson/bc9aab98-e59f-4b3d-9408-30c7c63ee959/ classroom#sortDirection=desc Jump, P 2013, ‘Study finds that too many adjectives and adverbs detract from academic writing’, viewed online 2 June 2021, https:// www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/29/study-finds-toomanyadjectives-and-adverbs-detract-academic-writing Kane, TS 1988, The New Oxford Guide to Writing, Oxford University Press, New York. Petelin, R 2016, How Writing Works: A field guide to effective writing’, Allen and Unwin, NSW. The Writing Center 2021, Passive Voice, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, viewed online 1 June 2021, https://writingcenter.unc.edu/ tips-and-tools/passive-voice/ Whitman, N 2021, Can I Start a Sentence with a Conjunction?, Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips, viewed online 18 June 2021, https://www. quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/can-i-start-a-sentencewith-a-conjunction? Mahoney, KD 2020-2021, Latdic: Latin Dictionary and Grammar Resources, viewed online 4 June 2021, https://latin-dictionary.net/ definition/19895/expletivus-expletiva-expletivum Sword, H 2016, The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Wordvice 2020, How to Improve Your Writing: Elimate Prepositions, viewed online 2 June 2021, https://wordvice.com/improve-writingeliminate-prepositions/

Last words

These five points represent just a few techniques writers can use in the pursuit of clear, concise writing. Once you finish penning your article, deploy these strategies to make your sentences sparkle. SUNATA 39