ACS 111 Using Sentences and words for effective writing

Effective writing has well - structured sentences and carefully selected words that have
been carefully arranged.

Effective sentences
Use the active voice rather than the passive voice. The latter you can use as a last resort. In
the active voice the subject acts and in the passive voice the subject is acted upon; it might
not be clear who does the action.
Active: Example students went to the lecture room.
Passive: He was defeated.

Passive verbs are constructed by combining the form to be with the past participle form of
the verb.
Example: He was voted out of the presidency.
The thief was caught by the police officer.
2. Parallel Construction
Use parallel construction to show the relationship between similar ideas. This will enhance
the effect of the ideas you are communicating. This is what you can do:
a) Use repetition effectively
b) Present all items in the same grammatical form e.g. people choose foreign
cars for their value, their performance and their style
c) Use coordinating conjunctions ( and, but, for, nor, so, yet) to link and balance
similar concepts,
Example: the federal government is giving more power to
states and local communities, and lowering income taxes.
d) Use coordinating conjunctions to link clauses. These are conjunctions like
either, or, neither, nor, not only but also.
3. Coordination and Subordination
a) coordination refers to the use of coordinate conjunctions to link parts of
sentences.
b) Subordination refers to placing lesser importance in the subordinate
(dependent) clauses and placing more important ideas in the main clause.
 Using appropriate subordinating and conjunctions helps the reader to
understand how different ideas relate to another. Here are some subordinating
conjunctions
After before that
Although even though though
As if unless
As if since until
As though when so that
Because than whereas
while

Coordination and subordination helps writers to avoid short, choppy sentences.

4. Wordy sentences
Avoid wordy sentences as they tend to obscure meaning. Try to write clear, direct sentences
so that your ideas are easy to follow. You can do the following to avoid wordy sentences.

a) Substitute appositives. These are words that mean the same thing with
words they refer to.
b) Delete expletives. These are words added to the sentence but do not add
meaning to the sentence
c) Use compound modifiers instead of prepositional and verbal phrases.

Exercise
Use one word for each of the following phrases
i) At this point in time
ii) Due to the fact that
iii) Be of the opinion that
iv) During the same time that
v) Has the ability to
vi) In spite of the fact that
vii) In todays world
viii) Until such time as
ix) Regardless of the fact that