Faulty Sentences

ENG302 : The Class : The Process : Prose Style : Faulty Sentences
Faulty Sentence Bases

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CRAFTING SENTENCES

The writer wants to put his pieces of writing in the best possible language. To make genuine improvements instead of superficial changes, the effective writer must first understand the qualities of good prose. Then he must be able to read his prose objectively to spot any places where his language deviates from those qualities. Finally, the writer must be able to correct the deficiencies he sees.

Merely placing a subject, verb, and object in normal order does not guarantee a good sentence. Many sentences, especially ones written quickly on first drafts, have a grammatical subject, verb, and object in proper order, but none of thesecorrespond to what the sentence is about conceptually. In other words, the grammar of the sentence leads one way, but the content of the sentence leads another way. Consider the following example.

"It was a half-hour drive until we came to a beautiful park."

The grammatical structure of this sentence is:

Grammatical Subject = It,

Verb = was,

Object = a half hour drive until we came to a beautiful park.

But conceptually, the sentence is not about an "it". Similarly, the active verb in the sentence is not "was", nor is the receiver of the action, or object, "a half-hour drive". Conceptually, the sentence's underlying structure is as follows.

Conceptual Subject = We

Verb = drove

Object = to a beautiful park in a half-hour.

The crafting of basic sentences may be summarized in the following steps. Most effective writers do not consciously work through these steps because the steps have become second nature. In other words, the effective writer writes, rather than follows a series of steps. Nonetheless, a beginning writer can profit from such a list. An unpracticed writer may have to work methodically through each step, but will soon internalize the process.

I. Establish the base sentence.

A. Find the grammatical subject, verb, and object of the first draft sentence.

B. Find the conceptual subject, verb, and object of the first draft sentence.

C. Complete the base sentence using the conceptual subject, verb, and object as the key words.

II. Mold the base sentence to reflect the desired emphasis of the sentence in
its context.

A. Analyze the context.

1. Purpose

2. Audience

3. Authorial stance

B. Manipulate the structure and/or words of the base sentence to fit

the purpose, audience, and authorial stance.

Three examples that illustrate these steps follow.

Example 1:
I. The additional eight million cubic feet per day would, according to Mr. Smith, be purchased by Oregon Natural.

A. Grammatical subject = eight million cubic feet

verb = would be purchased

object = Oregon Natural
B. Conceptual subject = Oregon Natural

verb = would purchase

object = eight million cubic feet
C. Base Sentence: Oregon Natural would purchase the additional eight million cubic feet per day.

Example 2:
II. A. The writer is urging his company to invest in more natural gas wells.

1. The purpose of the document that includes this sentence is to convince the company to acquire the new well, on the grounds that extra gas can be sold at extra profit.
2. The audience, an executive in the writer's company, is afraid their company will purchase too many wells and thus oversupply themselves with natural gas.
3. The writer is not in a position of enough authority in his company to demand that the new well be bought; thus, he must be clear and forceful, but not overly aggressive.

B. Final Resulting Sentence: Mr. Smith of our marketing department is confident Oregon Natural

will purchase another eight million cubic feet per day.

With the same base sentence, notice how a different context demands a different final revised sentence:

Example3:
II. A. The writer is questioning his own marketing department's assertion thatthe company can sell an additional

eight million feet of natural gas.

1. The purpose of this second document is still to convince the company to purchase the new well; however, the writer wants to have the record state clearly that the recommendation is based on the marketing department's go ahead. (The writer wants to practice CYA.)
2. The audience is Mr. Smith, head of marketing, with whom the writer disagrees.
3. The writer is in a peer or lateral relationship to Mr. Smith; thus he can be
relatively chatty and informal.

B. Final Resulting Sentence: Your earlier report, on which I am basing my recommendation, stated that Oregon Natural would take an additional eight million cubic feet per day.

Assignment

1. In the following memo, pick out at least one sentence that seems to have a faulty sentence base. Does anything in the context of the passage justify the apparently faulty base? If not, improve the sentence and explain your changes. This will be worth 50 points, and will be graded on the basis of the 4 Cs.

MEMO TO FILE

Subject: Future Corrosion and Mechanical Engineers Meetings

This memo is in response to the attached letter from R. C. Johnson, which solicited comments on how to improve the effectiveness of the Corrosion and Mechanical Engineers meetings. The following contains our comments on each of the items at the end of R. C. Johnson's letter:

1. Consideration of recent company-wide meetings indicates the presentations of Research personnel have consistently been of much benefit to us, and we are utilizing information from these presentations (settling tanks with Vortex design, inhibitors for hot deep wells, corrosion and stress-corroion resistance and metallurgy).

2. We recommend that regional corrosion engineers meetings be initiated; we believe that all of our district ofices will benefit from a meeting discussing monitering techniques used by each district. Furthermore, if all presentations are reviewed or selected from those given at regional meetings, "show and tell" presentations should be eliminated. For this to be effective, of course, all regions will need to have these meetings.

3. Concerning company-wide meetings, we feel that the current type of meeting on a nine-month frequency should achieve the goals of these meetings.

4. An alternative may be to alternate the current type of meeting with a smaller work session including only research, regional and general office staff, with six months between each meeting. In any case we wish to reserve the right to have district personnel attend the company-wide meeting on a selective basis, that is to make specific presentations of widespread interest and importance or to participate in discussions essential to district corrosion problems.

Type in the sentence you chose that seems to have a faulty sentence base here:

2. Does anything in the context of the passage justify the apparently faulty base?

3.
If not, improve the sentence and explain your changes.

For grading purposes, please provide the following information:

Your Name:
Your Email address:

Once you have filled in all of the areas above, click the Send the assignment button below to send the assignment to the instructor.

E-mail Greg Larkin at Gregory.Larkin@nau.edu
or call (520) 523-4911

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