Paper Review
Writing
Need assistance reviewing and revising a paper I submitted to one of my classes this week.
NOTES FROM PROFESSOR:
The content and research for this paper are decent enough, so no problem there, but I do have one comment that would improve it.
You tend to write very short and choppy sentences, making this difficult to follow and hurting the clarity of your overall argument.
If you find that you readily write in choppy sentences, it’s a very easy problem to solve. Add some “and’s,” “or’s” and “but’s.” In other words, push some of the sentences together and make compound sentences linked by conjunctions, but don’t make them run-on sentences. Or, even better, throw in some subordination, that is, clauses. Clauses are sentences units introduced by words called subordinating conjunctions, like “When . . .,” “Since . . .,” “Although . . .,” and “Even if . . .”
The lesson here is to turn your choppy sentences into longer, more complex ones by making them compound sentences with several subjects and verbs. The reason for doing that in formal writing is simple. When your writing is more intricate, it makes your thinking look that way, too.
Combine Sentences with Conjunctions:
Join complete sentences, clauses, and phrases with the conjunctions: “and,” “but,” “or,” “nor,” “yet,” “for,” “so”
Example: Doonesbury cartoons satirize contemporary politics. Readers don’t always find this funny. They demand that newspapers not carry the strip.
