Memorandum

To: Professor McGinnis

From: Alexis Brown
Date: January 24, 2017
Subject: Prose Style Analysis

Included in this memorandum will be an analysis of prose style writing. I

chose to analyze my paper Financial Crisis of 2008, which goes deeper into
detail of what occurred in the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Cut Lard- Redundant Words, Unnecessary Modifiers, and

Dead Phrases
Cutting lard is essential taking out all of the unnecessary extra words in your
writing. A common cause of having excess lard happens when you are trying
to meet a page length or word count requirement. It tends to be a lot of
easier to just add a couple words here and there rather than thinking of
useful sentences. Which can become a problem when it comes to writing
professionally. There are many dead phrases that can easily be summed up
into one word. I found in my essay, that there were many areas where lard
cut have been cut.

One of the major aspects that caused such an event to happen was the
subprime mortgages.

The sentence provided contains just one of many areas where lard could
have been cut. To the sentence I added unnecessary words such as; of, the,
major, such, to, and happen. None of these extra words were necessary for
the sentence to make sense. By removing these excess words, you can see
the sentence becomes more clear and concise. Leading the reader straight
to the point. After reading throughout the rest of my essay, I saw there was
lots of unnecessary modifiers, redundant words, and dead phrases.

Reanimate Phrases with a Single Word

Reanimate phrases with a single word is taking unnecessary phrases such as,
at the present time and at the point in time. Instead of using these two
sentences, one could replace them with now or then. By doing this, you are
making your purpose of sentence straight to the point.

The financial crisis that occurred in 2008 was one of the biggest and most
severe events since the Great Depression.

In the example provided above, you can see that I wrote the financial crisis
that occurred in 2008. This was the best example I could find for
reanimating a phrase with a single word. To better this sentence, I could
change the quoted phrase to the financial crisis of 2008.

Cut Unnecessary Modifiers

These type of modifiers are taking up space in your writing without adding
any additional information or meaning. They are not always wrong to use,
but make sure when using modifiers, they are useful or purposeful.

The financial crisis started in 2007 when the mortgage dealers started to
issue the so called subprime mortgage

The purpose of unnecessary modifiers is to cut words that are not useful. I
could better this sentence by cutting the words so called. These two words
are not useful or important information for this sentence to function.

Eliminate there with all forms of to be verbs

By replacing a to be form of a verb with there at the beginning of the
sentence, this allows the sentence to become more detailed.

There can be many reasons and factors to why something such as the
financial crisis of 2008 can occur.

In this example, you can see that I used there to start my sentence when
instead I should have used a to be form verb.

Tighten Verb Form

Tightening the verb, is an easy and excellent way to make the sentence
stronger. For example, taking the phrase is composing of and changing it
to composed.

The financial crisis started in 2007 when the mortgage dealers started to
issue the so called subprime mortgage.

In the paper, I found many areas where I could have tightened the verb. In
the example, I provided I could have tightened the verb by changing,
started to issue to issued.

Use Mostly Active Voice & Passive Voice

Active voice is when the person who is completing the action is the subject of
the sentence. Passive Voice, is when the sentence includes both the action
and also by who the action is completed by.

Since, my paper was informative there was not very good examples of
misuse or correct use of either active or passive voice.

Stress Emphasis Meaning & Stress Emphasis

When speaking, how one stresses or emphasizes a certain or single word can
affect the meaning of the whole sentence. In the English language, readers
look to the end of the sentence.
No matter the income or the ability to make a standard down payment, they
were able to own a home.

I feel in this sentence, that I did a good job on showing an example of

emphasizing at the end of the sentence. Showing that the most important
part of this sentence was being able to own a home.

Watch Sentence Length

Modern business prose style tends to accept shorter sentences. The average
sentence length is between 14 and 18 words, but dont let this average rule
be applied firmly. It also can be a good idea to vary your sentence lengths to
avoid choppy writings.

One piece of information that was hidden, was that they carried low interest
rates in the first few years but then inflated to rates in the double-digits in
the later years.

As you can see from the sentence I provided, I used over 25 words. There
were many words in this sentence that could be removed without losing the
purpose of this sentence.

Keep Paragraphs Short and Focused

Paragraphs in business writing are often much shorter than academic papers
are written. Keeping the business writing shorter helps the papers stay more
focused and directly to the point.

The financial crisis started in 2007 when the mortgage dealers started to
issue the so called subprime mortgage. These loans were one meant for
families that didnt qualify for the typical home loans. No matter the income
or the ability to make a standard down payment, they were able to own a
home. From a deontological view of this issue, you can see that they are
some rights being violated.

From the example provided, I feel as though I did follow the keeping
paragraphs short and focused.

Use Summative Modifiers

A summative modifier is used to sum up what has been said so far in the
sentence. By doing this, it helps create the right emphasis.
This violates in a deontological way because, the mortgage loaners are
violating the home owners rights by not disclosing this information up front.

This was the example that could find the closest example to using
summative modifiers. You can see that the sum of this sentence is to talk
about the deontological way.

Strings of Prepositions
By avoiding using strings of prepositions, it is easier for the readers to
understand the emphasis that you are attempting.

The crisis redesigned the world of finance and banking investments. The
underlying cause of the crisis was a mixture of debt and assets that were
mortgage backed.

I could not find an example in my paper that had excess prepositions,

although I did provide an example of sentences that only used one
preposition.

Avoid Needless Business Jargon

Jargon is a type of language that one uses in writing that may be hard to
understand outside of the context. If your audience does not have the
knowledge of the jargon, it can then be hard for your writing to be
understood.

The paper I provided for examples, was an informative paper so I felt jargon
was not a good thing to add to this type of paper.

Grammar Vs. Style

The difference between grammar and style is, grammar is the language rules
and style are the words you choose and how they are arranged. There are
three different rules when dealing with grammar; social, real, and invented.
Real rules are the ones that make English as English, if you were born English
then this is something that isnt often thought about rather just second
nature. Social rules however deal with using standard English vs nonstandard
English. Lastly, Invented rules are the rules that we were taught in school,
the ones we should observe.

Conclusion
After reading throughout my paper, and thinking about business prose style I
realized I have excess lard. There were many words and phrases that were
very unnecessary to be in my sentences. After cutting out all the lard, I was
almost down a half page. After I analyzed my entire paper with the prose
style, I was very surprised by how much writing will be able to improve by
following these simple steps.