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The Art of Editing 2: Back to the Beginning Painless Traditional Grammar Editing seminar series for supervisors and students 2012 Dr Liz Tynan Co-ordinator Research Student Academic Support JCU Graduate Research School Starting thought “Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein Editing for good grammar Subject-verb agreement Sentence structure, including “parallel structure” Pronoun use Verb use Preposition use Conjunction use Definite and indefinite article (the/a/an) use Dangling modifiers Traditional Grammar Traditional grammar is old grammar – the grammatical systems formulated in ancient Greece and later in Rome. The Greeks (specifically the Stoics in the third century BC) formulated grammar as an intellectual system for the first time. Communication obstacles Symbolic language is a uniquely human attribute. Language has evolved as the main way by which we project from our internal, subjective world to the wider external world. The obstacles in the way of translating our ideas into words that others can understand are many. Traditional grammar: parts of speech Noun Adjective Verb Adverb Preposition Pronoun Conjunction and Interjection Other trad grammar elements Two “numbers”: singular and plural; Five “cases”: including subject (nominative), object (accusative) and possessive (genitive) Three “persons”: first, second and third; Two “voices”: active and passive; and Up to five “moods”: including declarative, subjunctive, imperative, interrogative and infinitive. Verbal tenses 15 “tenses”: 5 x 3: various forms of past, present and future. The large number of verbal tenses in English helps ensure that nuanced action can be reported in sentences. Only four “units” True traditional grammar has only four “units”: word, phrase, clause, sentence. Grammar does not extend beyond the full-stop; traditional grammar is not concerned with paragraph structure. Nouns and “cases” All the cases relate to nouns and their relative position in a sentence. When a noun is in the nominative case it is the subject (or topic) of the sentence. Placing the grammatical subject at the start of a sentence ensures the most efficient delivery system for written information in English. Pronouns Pronouns: “I”, “we”, “it”, “him”, “her”, “their”, “this” and many others. Useful for making the language flow more smoothly: “Anne is going overseas though she doesn’t yet know exactly where.” It would sound odd to say “Anne is going overseas though Anne doesn’t yet know exactly where”. Pronouns inflect Pronouns change their form depending upon their role in the sentence. Consider these two sentences: My husband and I will open this fete. This fete will be opened by my husband and I. Pronoun antecedents The noun to which a pronoun refers is known as its antecedent. Problems arise when pronouns float around without an obvious antecedent. In academic writing using pronouns to start a sentence may be unwise. Floating pronouns “A decision was taken not to physically test the new design but instead use computer modelling to examine the strength of the foundation works and to ensure that all current algorithms were taken into account. This has meant that the client will need a full report upon completion. Verbs and “tense” The finite verb indicates whether the action is taking place in the past, present or future. Sentences can only be animated by finite verbs. A declarative sentence always has at least one noun and one verb, in direct relationship to each other. Simple finite verbs Simple finite verbs may be in the past, present or future tense. For example: wrote [past] writes [present] will write [future] Other verbal tenses Verbs take different forms depending on their function in the sentence: he had written (past perfect) he is writing (present continuous) he will be writing (future continuous) SV sentence The “subject-verb” sentence has a noun and a verb. For example, we can say “Maxine writes.” This is grammatically correct and contains a subject, “Maxine”, and a verb, “writes”, which describes the action. SVO sentence In the SVO structure, the verb connects the topic (subject) of sentence, Maxine, to the thing being acted upon, the object. For example: “Maxine writes a report”. In this sentence, the object is “a report”. Information delivery system The SVO sentence is the most efficient way to convey information. The logical simplicity of the SVO sentence assists both writers and editors. Understanding the dynamics of this structure will help you simplify prose and give it greater explanatory power. Identifying the subject Subjects can have more than one element. For example in this sentence: The conference and associated workshops will be held in October. …the subject is “The conference and associated workshops…” Also note that the subject is not necessarily the first thing you read in a sentence. For example in this sentence: “After visiting her suppliers, the managing director returned to the showroom.” …the subject is “the managing director…” Find the right verb Sentences must be powered by the right verb. In our SVO example, the finite verb is “writes”. It is recognisable because it can be changed to indicate past, present or future tense: wrote, writes, will write. A common error… …attempting to use the word “being” to drive the sentence. This construction is wrong: “This being the ideal environment for coral.” Fixing the error The word “being” will not be able to create an SVO sentence. This string of words does not have a finite verb and can only be grammatical if it is part of a bigger sentence: “The seawater around the reef is pristine, this being the ideal environment for coral.” Fixing the error, continued Another way to fix this sentence would be to change the verb to something suitable. This may lead to a new sentence such as: “This is the ideal environment for coral.” Finally fixing the problem Even better, considering the need to emphasise the grammatical subject, to avoid a floating pronoun and perhaps to provide the extra information that the longer sentence offers: “Coral grows best in pristine seawater.” More complicated sentences Grammatically more complicated structures may have more than one clause. A clause is a group of words containing a subject and verb that forms part of a sentence. Complex sentences: a main clause and attached sub-ordinate clause/s. Compound sentences: containing clauses of equal grammatical status. Complex sentence Subordinate clauses are joined to the main clause either by a conjunction or, in certain cases, by a semi-colon: “Smith and Jones Scientific in Sydney will supply the test kits, though not before 30 June.” Here the conjunction is “though”. Compound sentences “Smith and Jones Scientific in Sydney will supply the test kits and we expect to source fieldwork gear from this company as well.” In this case both clauses can stand alone grammatically, once you remove the “and”. Ugly and disjointed X: In a study by Bloggs (1955), on the roots of Kiwi fruit, it was found that upon prolonged micronutrient shortage, shoot and roots dry weight accumulation was impaired. √: Prolonged micronutrient shortage in Kiwi fruit roots was found by Bloggs (1955) to impair shoot and dry weight accumulation. SV agreement The subject of a sentence must “agree” with the finite verb of the sentence. This means that we write: The lawyer discusses her strategy. …and not: The lawyer discuss her strategy. Most people with a reasonable grasp of English will understand SV agreement here. Less obvious SV agreement Our house, as well as all our personal effects, were destroyed by the fire. OR Our house, as well as all our personal effects, was destroyed by the fire. The correct sentence has to be the second example, even if it doesn’t seem right. Words that intervene between subject and verb do not affect the number (i.e. singular or plural) of the verb. SV agreement & collective nouns An organisation, group or company is treated grammatically as a collective noun, and collective nouns always take singular verbs (and pronouns): The ABC broadcasts from its studios in the city. The finite verb in this sentence is “broadcasts”, and it is singular. Do not write “The ABC broadcast from their studios in the city.” Active and passive voice “Maxine writes the report” = active voice, because it follows the SVO construction. You can also say “The report is written by Maxine”, and what was the object now starts the sentence. The subject (Maxine) is now called the agent – “by Maxine”. The verb has undergone a change, known as the passive transformation. Can you always avoid passive voice? No - it may be necessary, for example, if the active subject is unknown or not easily stated: “Walter’s father was killed in the Second World War”. We don’t know who or what actually killed Walter’s father. There can be no “agent” because we don’t have enough information to say who carried out the action of the sentence. Dodging responsibility Passive voice may distance the writer from the reader and from responsibility for the action in the sentence: “The hospital beds have been shut down.” There is no agent in this sentence, which has the effect of holding no-one responsible. Maybe the sentence could correctly be rendered as: “The hospital beds have been shut down by the Health Department.” …in which case it could be rewritten in active voice as: “The Health Department shut down the hospital beds.” Placing emphasis Sometimes passive voice is used because it places at the start the most important element: “The magnificent red luxury sports car was fixed by the mechanic.” OR “The mechanic fixed the magnificent red luxury sports car.” Depending on what you want the sentence to do, you may choose the first – passive – version over the second active version. A common misconception Either voice can be in any of the tenses. For examples: Past Present Future Active I wrote the article I write the article I will write the article Passive The article was written by me The article is written by me The article will be written by me Parallel structure “People are always impressed by her smooth manner, elegant clothes and being witty.” Smooth manner = adjective + noun Elegant clothes = adjective + noun Being witty = participle + adjective When editing for parallel structure, you would probably alter this sentence thus: “People are always impressed by her smooth manner, elegant clothes and sharp wit.” Fused or run-on sentences “Drugs such as salbutamol and turbutaline may be given orally or by injection to open up the breathing tube occasionally it is necessary to hospitalise the patient so that intravenous fluids can be provided.” Comma splices “The wrist is a common site of rheumatoid arthritis and osteo-arthritis, another common problem is carpel tunnel syndrome.” Prepositions Prepositions help draw relationships between the content words. They define the relationship the following noun bears to an item that precedes or follows. For example: “(available) to participants “(borrowed) by Ken” Prepositions continued Prepositions may define relationships in a spatial sense: “on ice” “in tanks” or a temporal sense: “before breakfast” “between seasons” They can also show causal relationships: “by perseverance” “through effort” And there is a range of other interconnections: “despite hardships” “against odds” “among friends” Do not disrupt Because of the close and unequal relationship between prepositions and the nouns they govern, they should not be disrupted. For example, you can put the word “suddenly” in various places in the sentence “Ruth’s dogs sprang at him”, but not between “at” and “him”. Correct use of prepositions “…familiar with.” (not about) “…a tussle with.” (not against) “…we pride ourselves on (not in) “…believe in.” (not on) “…ask questions of someone.” (not to) “…what do you think of this?” (not to) A parting thought “I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.” Benjamin Disraeli, Victorian era British Prime Minister