Awkward Sentences and How to Fix Them! Why have teachers told you that your sentences were awkward? No doubt your teachers read a lot and were pretty good writers themselves because of it. They are used to reading carefully constructed sentences. Therefore, they recognize, usually quite accurately, when you have written sentences that did not work well. However, sometimes it s hard for us to understand exactly why/how a sentence is awkward. Read on to find out more! So, what are awkward sentences? Awkward sentences are those which are difficult or confusing to read. We may have to guess at the writer s meaning. Usually our purpose in writing is to make our writing clear, easy and fast to read. It s normal to fail in that goal from time to time; even the best writers probably write awkward sentences occasionally! So why are these sentences awkward and how can they be fixed? In reality, sentences are awkward for several different reasons, and we can t possibly go through all of them. However, here are the six main ones: 1. A sentence can be awkward because it is not parallel. For example: I want to study law, to work hard, and becoming a good lawyer. When a sentence is not parallel, all of its grammatical parts or units are not balanced. Corrected: I want to study law, to work hard, and to become a good lawyer. 2. A sentence can be awkward because it has mixed construction. For example: A person taking on the role of caregiver for another, a sick elder, perhaps, is a very demanding job. When a sentence has mixed construction, the subject of the sentence does not match the verb or the verb does not match the object (the receiver of the action) In the example sentence above, the sentence (subject-verb-object) is actually saying A person is a job. When you look at this sentence pared down to its basic structure, you can see that something is wrong with the logic. In fact, you know well that a person is not a job. It might take just a small change to fix this sentence like a simple verb change, for example. Corrected: A person taking on the role of caregiver for another, a sick elder, perhaps, has a very demanding job. 4. A sentence can be awkward because it has passive voice For example: The pizza party was organized by the students who won the competition. Passive voice exists when we put the subject of the sentence at the end of the sentence, and the rest of the sentence comes first (this is simplified explanation but it works for now!). So, who is doing the action in this sentence? The students who won the competition! So, why are the readers only learning that at the END of the sentence? It s confusing and awkward. Remember, the person/thing actually DOING the action should come BEFORE we explain who/what the action is done to. To correct the passive voice, the doer must be put in the subject position. Corrected: The students who won the competition organized the pizza party.
5. A sentence can be awkward because it is full of wordiness and gobblygook. It is important to effect the verbalization of concepts through the utilization of unsophisticated terminology. Translation: Speak simply. Many students believe that they must use the largest words they can find in their thesaurus and many of them! But good writing is not about using the most sophisticated word; it is about using the best word. 6. Poor sentence structure! If a sentence is really long and/or lacks punctuation, it can be very hard for a reader to follow your train of thought. Read each sentence alone, by itself. Pause in between each sentence and listen to hear if it actually makes sense. Or better yet, read it out loud to someone else and get their opinion! DICTION Remember, diction refers to word choice. Think about what we discussed with regards to connotation and denotation. Before you write a business letter, you need to really think about which words best express your views clearly. However, you also need to be extremely careful that your letter doesn t sound immature, crass (too blunt and uneducated), or rude. No one will pay any attention to you if you are disrespectful. INFORMAL LANGUAGE NEVER HAS A PLACE IN BUSINESS LETTERS...EVER!! To make a request in a business letter, consider the following: We would appreciate... I was wondering if you would be willing... It would be a great advantage to everyone if you... An opportunity like this presents itself very rarely, and I thought perhaps you might be interested. As a concerned member of the community, I thought perhaps you could... To make a complaint, consider: I would like to express my dissatisfaction with... I feel it is important for your company to be aware that... I was disappointed with the quality of your product/service and... We feel strongly that we were mistreated, and we are seeking ways to rectify this. I must express my strong objection to the decision your organization made. To sell yourself in terms of a job, consider: I am a, and worker, and I would be an asset to your company. My experience with and have allowed me to become a very strong team player. I have spent some time researching your company and I am impressed with the way your company runs. I would love an opportunity to be a member of this great business.
Awkward sentences and informal vocabulary have no place in business-based writing. Few things in life present such a negative picture of a writer as poor grammar, sentence structure and/or vocabulary. With this in mind, rewrite the following sentence changing the order of words, the word choice, the grammar and/or punctuation. Make it appropriate for a business letter. In other words, turn these sentences into more sophisticated ones that would create an impressive view of the writer. 1. Since you have money to help, i thought maybe you could give us some. 2. You attending our party and talking to us would give all of us something to look forward to. 3. This is why I want my money back your company sucks and i m an unhappy custumer and if you don t i ll never ever buy from you again and I ll tell my freinds the same thing! 4. I need to know by thursday if you will be able to make it or if you are chosing not to help us with this. 5. Cruising some job sites I saw you could use an intern this summer. Cool, I m your man.
6. I am much better than all the other people applying for this job because my dad is important in this city and I ve had lots of chances to learn from the stuff he does and i m just smarter than most of my friends to. 7. I enjoy the sports I do like swimming, biking and to downhill ski. 8. His dad are real sick and i m just trying to get some help because he s a nice kid and its real awful what s happened to him. 9. You shouldn t close the park because my parents elected you to the city council and if you do you re going to tick a whole bunch of people off and you ll never get elected again. 10. Whatever everyone else thinks, our team didn t do the vandalism to the park and its retarded that the park is having to be cleaned up by us.
11. The ads on public buses are so disgusting and their not appropriate for kids and I think its time we do something or little kids might get the wrong idea and it could just be bad for everyone. 12. Our school totally could use your help in being a public speaker and it would be awesome for you too because then everyone else in the town will think that you like to help people which is really important because then you can get more buisness.
Fixing Awkward Sentences Because You Can! Name: