midterm portfolio
David Bubash
EN 3150
Dr. Martin
3 February 2014
Midterm Portfolio
Introduction:
1. Change a Nominalization This entry comes from my response of a philosophical article entitled “People or Penguins,” by William F. Baxter. This article is about Baxter’s theory that humans should come before animals in all matters, and that every decision made should consider how greatly it would affect people. In the first paragraph, I summarized Baxter’s argument, and I wrote this clause: Original: “…everyone needs to focus on the objective of solving environmental problems, which is to benefit people to the greatest satisfaction possible…” Clearly, this clause has become as lengthy and as confusing as a philosophical argument, and one of the reasons that it is so confusing is that I used the nominalization “satisfaction.” According to Williams, a sentence seems clear when its important actions are in verbs (Williams 32). Using that advice, I would rewrite the clause to read: Revised: “…everyone needs to focus on the objective of satisfying everyone as much as possible when solving environmental problems…” By changing the nominalization to a verb that more directly clarifies “objective,” the sentence becomes clearer.
2. Passive Voice vs. Active This entry comes from a paper I wrote for Postcolonialism & Literature about hybridity, meaning how a nation mixes its old culture with a new one when it becomes colonized by a stronger nation, creating an entirely new culture. My very first sentence reads as follows: Original: “The postcolonial history of any nation is the period of time when a nation attempts to colonize an inferior community, as well as the time after the colonizer has successfully colonized the community.” This sentence would be good if my paper were about the colonizers. However, the paper focuses almost entirely on the colonized, and it was only because of my belief that sentences must always be written in active voice that I wrote it this
EN 3150
Dr. Martin
3 February 2014
Midterm Portfolio
Introduction:
1. Change a Nominalization This entry comes from my response of a philosophical article entitled “People or Penguins,” by William F. Baxter. This article is about Baxter’s theory that humans should come before animals in all matters, and that every decision made should consider how greatly it would affect people. In the first paragraph, I summarized Baxter’s argument, and I wrote this clause: Original: “…everyone needs to focus on the objective of solving environmental problems, which is to benefit people to the greatest satisfaction possible…” Clearly, this clause has become as lengthy and as confusing as a philosophical argument, and one of the reasons that it is so confusing is that I used the nominalization “satisfaction.” According to Williams, a sentence seems clear when its important actions are in verbs (Williams 32). Using that advice, I would rewrite the clause to read: Revised: “…everyone needs to focus on the objective of satisfying everyone as much as possible when solving environmental problems…” By changing the nominalization to a verb that more directly clarifies “objective,” the sentence becomes clearer.
2. Passive Voice vs. Active This entry comes from a paper I wrote for Postcolonialism & Literature about hybridity, meaning how a nation mixes its old culture with a new one when it becomes colonized by a stronger nation, creating an entirely new culture. My very first sentence reads as follows: Original: “The postcolonial history of any nation is the period of time when a nation attempts to colonize an inferior community, as well as the time after the colonizer has successfully colonized the community.” This sentence would be good if my paper were about the colonizers. However, the paper focuses almost entirely on the colonized, and it was only because of my belief that sentences must always be written in active voice that I wrote it this