University of Chicago Sentence of the Week http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/sentence.htm A weekly sentence, bad or good, with analysis, praise (if appropriate), and revision (if necessary). Writing Editing Grammar Saturday 30 en-us 2009 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. You are free to share and reproduce this material for educational, non-commercial purposes, if you include attribution to the University of Chicago Writing Program. Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) Sentence of the Week: Communicative hair http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut11.htm Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut11.htm Communicative hair

Head teacher Nigel Pott said the school had been trying to resolve the issue of Chloe's hair since before Christmas. Despite liaising with Chloe and her parents, her hair had stayed a pink colour, Mr. Pott said.

This week's passage reports a complex dispute among at least three parties: a young woman, her teachers, and her parents. Unfortunately, the second sentence unexpectedly adds another participant: hair, which appears to be negotiating on its own behalf. How can we restore Chloe's hair to its normal condition of bashful silence?

In this week's post, we revise the passage's second sentence by:

  • fixing the errant modifier,
  • suggesting alternative subjects, and
  • explaining how to make the original subject work.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: Who should get a mammogram? http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut10.htm Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut10.htm This week's sentence: Who should get a mammogram?

The proportion of biopsies that occur because of these false-positive results that are retrospectively deemed unnecessary (that is, the woman did not have cancer) is about 7%; therefore, many more women will undergo unnecessary biopsies under annual screening than biennial screening.

The authors of this week's sentence face a real rhetorical challenge. They're trying to recommend a change in a common medical practice (annual mammograms for women over forty), and they're making this recommendation to an extremely large and diverse audience. How can they do a better job of making their case?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by:

  • moving up the verb,
  • untangling the chain of "that" modifiers, and
  • speculating on what "seven per cent" really means.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: Which parents? http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut09.htm Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut09.htm This week's sentence: Which children? Which parents?

Neglect of children due to either economic constraint or willful torture without a direct or indirect benefit to the offender formulated by increased attention and notoriety is also not considered typical MBP behavior.

This week's sentence is meant to do some important work: let doctors know when a parent should be diagnosed with a controversial syndrome called MBP (Munchausen By Proxy, for the curious). The writer here faces a challenge common to experts. She's juggling a lot of complex information, and she's writing for readers who need the information to do their jobs. Unfortunately, the resulting sentence is so difficult that many readers might give up in despair. How might it be fixed?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by:

  • moving the verb closer to the front,
  • sorting out logical categories, and
  • restoring human characters to the story.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: The perils of melamine http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut08.htm Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut08.htm This week's sentence: The perils of melamine

A cheap industrial chemical at the heart of a massive food recall in China following its detection in infant milk powder, the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) announced that sweets containing melamine at levels of 11.25mg/kg, 152mg/kg and 80 mg/kg respectively had been detected on the shelves.

When faced with the sentence above, most readers will give up somewhere in the middle. What went wrong?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by:

  • fixing a misplaced modifier
  • reducing the gap between the subject and the verb.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: Where was your degree born? http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut07.htm Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut07.htm This week's sentence: Where was your degree born?

Born and raised in New York State, my first degree was in Chemistry at Williams College.

If you've ever committed an embarrassing grammatical faux pas in public, you're not alone. What went wrong with today's sentence, and how can we fix it?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by suggesting two ways to fix the misplaced modifier.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: Whistle while you work http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut06.htm Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut06.htm This week's sentence: Whistle while you work

Incorporating the affective/motivational properties in music perception into the work process could provide affective change in computer programming work.

This week's author has a great suggestion that could improve the lives of a tired, disgruntled, undervalued group of people. But if this sentence seems to you more bewildering than enlightening, you're not alone. What is it trying to say?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by:

  • rustling up a few human characters
  • speculating on the meaning of "affective change."

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]> Sentence of the Week: Those pesky verbs http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut05.htm Mon, 5 Oct 2009 11:00:00 CST tweiner@uchicago.edu (Tracy Weiner) http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/archive/2009Aut05.htm This week's sentence: Those pesky verbs

Reforming American Studies in ways that only reinterprets the U.S. in ways that synchronizes with its renovated hegemony is not a compelling project.

Ouch! This week's writer has an interesting idea, but the convoluted sentence structure strangles both the idea and the grammar. How can we fix the problem?

In this week's post, we revise the sentence by:

  • making the subjects and verbs agree,
  • eliminating some repetition,
  • moving the verb up front, and
  • suggesting alternative word choices for different audiences.

View a step-by-step explanation of what we changed and why.

***

Do you have a suggestion for the Sentence of the Week? Email us at writing-program@uchicago.edu. Sentences must be from published, professional prose (sorry, no poetry). You must include a complete citation with your entry. If we use a sentence, we will thank you publicly (if you wish) or privately (if that's what you'd prefer), and we will also reward you with gratitude, kind thoughts, and good karma.

]]>