No matter what you’re writing, there is a rush that comes from putting your thoughts into some form of text. A flow starts to build while you type and pieces seem to fit together, sometimes a little too easily. There’s an adrenaline rush when thoughts leave your body, be it through a keyboard or pen. Yet, the haze of the moment can hide simple errors and problems with clarity. It’s like the saying goes, it sounded better in your head. Don’t worry, today you’ll get some of the top reasons you could be dealing with an awkward sentence and how you can fix it.
Let’s get started.
Passive voice
The pile of papers was pushed around by a sudden gust of wind.
Passive voice happens when the action of the verb is written through the lens of the subject, instead of letting the verb lead. While the passive structure isn’t exactly a terrible mistake, it is a simple problem that doesn’t require much effort to fix. Look at the example here, our subject (the pile of papers) is trying to explain a small event that happened. But to put this in a more active voice it would look like, A sudden gust of wind pushed the pile of papers all over. Now your reader is in the middle of the action and not a memory.
Split infinitives
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Split infinitives have been a long point of debate in the writing world. The MLA Style Center defines an infinitive as the to form of a verb, meaning a split infinitive is when something is placed between the to and the verb. In this case, the infinitive is to go. To fix the split infinitive in our example it would move quickly away from the infinitive and tag it on the end of the sentence. Now, sometimes a split infinitive is required if there are no other possible options that provide clarity. However, try to keep from splitting infinitives if the meaning of the sentence will remain intact.
Run-on sentences
There is an extra copy of documents on the table for you and don’t forget that the office can only scan signatures in either black or blue ink.
At one point or another, we have all tried to maneuver run-on sentences. More often than not, the cause of a run-on sentence is either the lack of a comma, or trying to keep two sentences together in one string. For the provided example, you have two options. It’s possible to put a comma after the conjunction and to keep the sentence together, or you can take the conjunction out and make them two complete sentences. When dealing with run-on sentences, one of the best ways you can spot them is the old trick of reading them outloud. Until you physically realize how much air it takes to get through the sentence, you won’t be able to pick them out as easily.
Clunky word choice
Our best bet is to use the practice of automated scheduling moving forward.
Sometimes when your punctuation is right, you’ve checked over your infinitives, and you’ve written in an active voice, the sentence still seems clunky. If you look at the example, the overall message is not hard to grasp, but it seems jumbled. The options here boil down to either take out some of the extra words, or rewrite the whole sentence. If you take a few words out it would look like this, Our best bet is to move forward with automated scheduling. If you need to cut down even more than that, the rewrite might look something like this, we need to start with automated scheduling. Both statements are clear, direct and hit the tone of necessity. If you are worried about your sentence being too wordy, read it outloud and try to check back in on the purpose of your words. We commonly try to pad simple statements with fluff words, thinking that it sounds better. In reality, when a thought is crammed with stuff that has no purpose, your point is lost entirely.
McDonough Editorial 