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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.
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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 marks 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. |
| 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 aconclusion" 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... |
| USE: | We concluded that...
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INSTEAD OF: | I am working on the assumption that... |
| USE: | I assume that... |
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