Word and Joseph M. Williams
Memorandum
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Re: Executive summary of lesson seven (concision) in style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams
The book by Joseph M. Williams in style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace he generally tackles on writing as a verb. He clearly expounds on the most effectual and competent styles vis-à-vis writing as a verb. ‘Concision’ is the title of lesson seven where William explains how important it is to shorten a sentence so that a reader can clearly understand it. He explains one should not only know how to control the flow of ideas but they should be able to be brief. The causes of wordiness have also been explained in the book. This wordiness in a sentence or redundancy is tackled by the five principles of concision that make a sentence to be precise and attractive to the reader.
The first principle focuses on deleting pointless words. Some words do not necessarily have to be in a sentence. These words include generally, normally, usually or actually. Without the use of these words the sentence still retains its original meaning. The second principle talks about deleting words with the same meaning. Williams explain that this occurs in coupling words in relation to an occurrence. The third principle talks on deleting words that are disguised by other words. According to William this mainly occurs with unnecessary categories and modifiers. Replacing a phrase with a word is the fourth principle. This is by using vocabulary to explain a whole sentence. The last principle is translating negatives into affirmatives. This is like ‘not old enough’ to ‘too young’. With this it is much easier to for the reader to read through and understand. Metadiscourse which was introduced in chapter two by the author are mainly words such as first or second. Removing metadiscourse is another way of summarizing. In lesson seven of style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams it describes how important it is to shorten a
To:
From:
Date:
Re: Executive summary of lesson seven (concision) in style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams
The book by Joseph M. Williams in style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace he generally tackles on writing as a verb. He clearly expounds on the most effectual and competent styles vis-à-vis writing as a verb. ‘Concision’ is the title of lesson seven where William explains how important it is to shorten a sentence so that a reader can clearly understand it. He explains one should not only know how to control the flow of ideas but they should be able to be brief. The causes of wordiness have also been explained in the book. This wordiness in a sentence or redundancy is tackled by the five principles of concision that make a sentence to be precise and attractive to the reader.
The first principle focuses on deleting pointless words. Some words do not necessarily have to be in a sentence. These words include generally, normally, usually or actually. Without the use of these words the sentence still retains its original meaning. The second principle talks about deleting words with the same meaning. Williams explain that this occurs in coupling words in relation to an occurrence. The third principle talks on deleting words that are disguised by other words. According to William this mainly occurs with unnecessary categories and modifiers. Replacing a phrase with a word is the fourth principle. This is by using vocabulary to explain a whole sentence. The last principle is translating negatives into affirmatives. This is like ‘not old enough’ to ‘too young’. With this it is much easier to for the reader to read through and understand. Metadiscourse which was introduced in chapter two by the author are mainly words such as first or second. Removing metadiscourse is another way of summarizing. In lesson seven of style: Ten lessons in clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams it describes how important it is to shorten a