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Parallelism
Parts of a sentence should be joined in equal ways.
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NON-PARALLEL:
| Dennis wants to become a lawyer, an alderman,
and be able to write novels. |
| PARALLEL: |
Dennis wants to become a lawyer, an alderman, and
a novelist. |
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Misplaced Modifiers
ADJECTIVES modify nouns; ADVERBS
modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.
| MISPLACED: |
Driving around the corner, three churches appeared. |
| CORRECTED: |
Driving around the corner, I saw three churches come into view. |
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Expletives
Expletives are empty
"filler" words that are inserted at a place in a sentence
where the subject should go. If a sentence
begins, "It is evident that..." the word "It" is an
expletive marking the spot in the sentence where
a subject should go but it doesn't actually convey
any information. Expletives are wasted words.
LOOK FOR: Any sentence (or phrase) that
begins with "It is..." "There are..." etc. and fix the error
by finding the real subject of the sentence and
using it in place the empty words.
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INSTEAD OF: |
It is evident that we will not meet our goal. |
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USE: |
We will not meet our goal. |
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Nominalization
Nominalization is changing a verb into a noun.
When you change a verb to a noun, you take the
strength away from the sentence. For example,
"to conclude" is a specific act but if you are "reaching
a conclusion" you've eliminated the specific action and
replaced it with an all-purpose verb. Instead of
"concluding," the action becomes "reaching."
LOOK FOR such words as: recognition, assumption,
formation, protection, realization, destruction, decision,
examination and correct the error by changing the
word back to a verb that is assigned to a subject.
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INSTEAD OF: |
We reached the conclusion that... |
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USE: |
We concluded that...
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INSTEAD OF: |
I am working on the assumption that... |
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USE: |
I assume that... |
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