ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies » March 3rd: Form and Function

March 3rd: Form and Function

  • Midterm Next Week–on Canvas
  • Homework #3 due tonight at 11:00 pm–via Canvas

Plan for the Day

  • Nominalizations
  • Ch. 5: Choosing Adverbials
  • Review #1 Comments on Canvas
  • Homework #2 Review on Canvas–bottom of main page
    • Remember to follow the directions for your homework assignments
    • Exercises #11 and #12 asked you to explain the effect of your revision
    • Yes, the exercise had examples on how to describe the revision effects
  • Midterm Grades: Those of you with grades below 70% will get a Midterm grade. The grade is based on the assignments up to this point (I hope that includes Homework #3, but I have until Friday, 3/5, at Noon).

Nominalizations

Something I noticed in your reviews was the heavy use of nominalizations. That’s a fancy way of saying you’re trapping useful verbs in noun forms. We’ll discuss this at greater length later in the semester, but it will be part of your Midterm Exam next week (3/09), so I want to introduce it here. What do the following words have in common?

  • Determination
  • Confirmation
  • Speculation
  • Compliance

You’ll notice the first three word end in -tion, and you might recall (make a recollection) past professors asking you to limit shun words. Your goal is to free the trapped verbs in these nominalizations. You can revise the above nouns to be the following active verbs:

  • Determination → determine
  • Confirmation → confirm
  • Speculation → speculate
  • Compliance → comply

Often, these nominalizations come in passive voice constructions, so you have a couple strategies to employ to make your prose sing. Consider the following sentence and its revision:

  • Original: In this case a determination of your negligence has been made by us.
  • Revision: We’ve determined your negligence in this case.
  • Even better: You’re negligent.

While I have your ear, make sure you pay close attention to dangling modifiers (pp. 87-88). Although they can be punctuated correctly, they can also sound illogical. For instance, the following sentence is a contemporary example:

  • While streaming Netflix, my cat hopped into my lap.

It may be possible for your cat to stream Netflix; after all, what creature “chills” more than a cat. You’ll want to revise to have you as the subject of the adverbial clause (or the person actually streaming Netflix):

  • While I was streaming Netflix, my cat hopped into my lap.

Notice that in the above revision ‘I’ is the subject of the adverbial clause and NOT the sentence. “Cat” is the subject of the sentence. If this is confusing, you need to re-read Ch. 2 before next week’s Midterm Exam.

Independent Clauses

In Ch. 4, p. 56, Kolln & Gray defined independent clauses. Independent clauses may be stand-alone sentences with the following:

  • Subject
  • Verb
  • Complete thought

On the next page, Kolln & Gray state, “Use a comma before the coordinating conjunction joining the two independent clauses of a compound sentence.” (p. 57). You don’t use commas before the FANBOYS (for, or, nor, but, or, yet, so) unless they’re joining independent clauses. Make sure you understand why the following sentences are punctuated correctly:

  • The kids played outdoors all morning but stayed inside all afternoon.
  • The kids played outdoors all morning, but they stayed inside all afternoon.

In the second sentence, “they” is the subject of the second independent clause, so it needs a comma before “but.” If it helps, separate the subjects of the independent clauses in your head. Below “kids” and “they” are the subjects:

  • The kids played outdoors all morning, but they stayed inside all afternoon.

Commas with coordinating conjunctions will be important for the rest of the semester. Yes, this will be on both the Midterm the Final Exams.

Ch. 5: Choosing Adverbials

Adverbs modify verbs, and adverbials modify the functions of adverbs and other words. They often answer when, where, how (frequency and manner), and why. As with adverbs, adverbials are the most movable words, phrases, and clauses in sentences. While it’s important to know how to properly punctuate these clauses, it’s more important to understand how placement creates a rhetorical effect.

Time to re-read Ch. 5 in Kolln & Gray. Don’t worry; I’ll wait.

Adverb Phrases (AdvP)

Don’t be fooled by the word “phrases” when talking about parts of speech or parts of sentences; a single word can be a “phrase.” Using the following adjectives, create logical adverbs for the following sentences:

Adjectives: serious, skillful, slow, lucky, drastic

  • The Italian quiz caused me pain.
    • The Italian quiz seriously caused me pain.
  • My trip to Las Vegas was a winner!
    • Luckily, my trip to Las Vegas was a winner!
    • Full disclosure: My last trip to Vegas was NOT a lucky trip.
  • My boss is making changes.
    • My boss is drastically making changes.
  • My cat navigates my counters, dressers, and dining room table.
    • My cat skillfully navigates my counters, dressers, and tables.
  • People from South Carolina drive.
    • People from South Carolina drive slowly.

Prepositional Phrases

I’m confident that you can easily identify prepositional phrases, but, after reading your Reviews, I’m not sure I’m confident that you wisely place prepositional phrases. On p. 79, Kolln & Gray mention they may be used to show possession (which is the way other languages—French, Italian, and Spanish—show possession). Read the following and explain why one is preferred over the other or whether it matters.

  • Shakespeare’s plays garnered the crowd’s laughter opening night.
  • On opening night, the plays of Shakespeare garnered laughter from the crowd.

Don’t try to eliminate ALL preposition phrases (as the first example does), but use them strategically. For instance, notice where the stress is on certain words when you consider end focus (p. 80).

Verb Phrases*

Verb or verbal phrases are quite common when giving advice, explaining habitually actions, and providing context for why something was done. (this isn’t in Kolln & Gray’s book, but I think it helps understand why we often use them). For instance,

  • Jack got up early that morning to work on his project.
    {Jack did something to do something.}
  • Jack gets up early in the morning to work out.
    {Jack routinely does this particular activity.}
  • To train for a marathon, Jacks needs a morning workout ritual/program.
    {Jack’s advice to himself.}

Notice where to place commas in these infinitive phrases (p. 81).

  • to work
  • to work out*
  • to train

*Notice I selected to work out. In this instance, “work out” is the entire verb, and “out” is actually a verb particle–not a preposition. Technically, “to” is also a verb particle because it’s the infinitive particle and not a preposition. Remember, a word can be a variety of parts of speech. Use context clues to determine what’s what.

Dependent Clauses

Dependent clauses cannot stand alone as complete sentences. Often, writers punctuate dependent clauses with periods (.) because they see a subject and verb, but they forget a sentence needs a complete thought. When I see this in your work, I will often write “not a sentence.” I like that Kolln & Gray dispel the myth that you can’t start a sentence with “because,” and they even point out teachers took the easy way out by just banning its use as an opener instead of explaining it further (p. 86). Remember, coordinating conjunctions combine independent clauses, creating compound sentences. Subordinating clauses add more information to independent clauses, creating complex sentences. This often helps vary your prose, moving from choppy, short sentences to rhythmic, longer sentences.

Of course, intentional fragments can be effective. Sparingly.

Ch. 5 Exercises

Homework #3 is to do the exercises (#17, #18, and #19) from Ch. 5 in Kolln & Gray. These exercises reinforce what you’re reading. Below I have an example related to Exercise #17 (pp. 83-84):

  • When a party ends, what do you do?
    {go home, go to another’s home, find an after hours place, go to jail, etc.}
  • Revision: After the party ended at midnight, we went to Waffle House.

Preview Midterm

You need to make sure you can identify the following in a sentence: Nouns, Verbs, Determiners, Adjectives, Adverbs, Subjects, Agents, Direct Objects, and Indirect Objects. You will also need to know how to punctuate compound and complex sentences with subordinating clauses. Also, you’ll still need to independent clauses using a conjunctive adverbs (p. 58):

  • The union and management could not come to an agreement before the deadline. They will meet again in the morning.
  • Revision: The union and management could not come to an agreement before the deadline; however, they will meet again in the morning.

You don’t have to identify sentence patterns on the Midterm Exam, but p. 24 helps reinforce your understanding of Direct and Indirect Objects.

Finally, make sure you know how to revise sentences for concision, including in the following ways:

  • revise passive to active voice
  • make series parallel
  • limit to be verbs
  • free verbs trapped in nominalizations
  • get to the point.

Return Review #1

I finished commenting on all of your Review #1 assignments. It has no grade because it is a an assignment you’ll revise for your final portfolio. Everyone has revision to do, so don’t let the amount of commenting scare you (too much). Re-read the assignment guidelines. Also, and this is VERY important, please notice that I offer summative comments AND comments in annotations. In order to read all my comments, you might have to scroll right on your Canvas submission. If you don’t see my overall comments AND the annotations, you’re missing my entire feedback.

Please follow my suggests closely. Although you don’t have to incorporate everything, you’ll need to explain why you made the choices you did in your Final Portfolio’s reflective letter.

Next Class

Midterm Exam next week! Everything is fair game. If you email me and ask “what to study,” I’ll assume you haven’t been reading these weekly activity pages.