Characters S 劉柏佑 S 易振薇 S 陳芊蓉

Understanding the importance of characters

a. The CIA feared the president would recommend to Congress that it reduce its budget. b.The fear of the CIA was that a recommendation from the president to Congress would be for a reduction in its budget.

p.53 Here’s the point: Reader want action in verbs, but they want characters as subjects even more.

Diagnosis and revision: Characters

1.When your subjects are not characters 2. If they aren’t, where you should look for characters 3. What you should do when find them

Diagnose sentence: 1.Underline the first seven or eight words 2.Find the main characters 3.Skim the passage for actions involving those characters, particularly actions buried in nominalizations #using conjunctions such as: if, although, because,when,how and why

Before: Governmental intervention in fast- changing technologies has led to the distortion of market evolution and interference in new product development. After: When a government intervenes in fast- changing technologies, it distorts how market evolve and interferes with their ability to develop new products.

Reconstructing absent characters

Invent characters: One stiff We ambiguous Doer You not naming readers inappropriate Passive verbs

Abstractions as characters p.58 Here’s the point: 1.Familiar with your abstractions no problem not familiar avoid using lots of other abstracts around 2. Characters are “people in general” researchers, social critics, one, we

Characters and Passive Verbs

When you write in the active voice, you typically put The agent or source of an action in the subject The goal or receiver of an action in a direct object

A verb is in the passive voice when its past participle is preceded by a form of be. The passive differs from the active in two ways: 1.The subject names the goals of the action. 2.The agent or source of the action is after the verb in a by-phrase or dropped entirely.

The terms active and passive, however, are ambiguous.

For example, compare these two sentences. We can manage the problem if we control costs. Problem management requires cost control.

Grammatically, both sentences are in the active voice, but the second feels passive, for three reasons: Neither of its actions –management and control—are verbs; both are nominalizations. The subjects is problem management, an abstraction. The sentences lacks flesh-and-blood characters.

Choosing Between Active and Passive.

To choose between active and passive, you have to answer three questions:

1. Must your readers know who is responsible for the action? For example: The president was rumored to have considered resigning.

2. Would the active or passive help your readers move more smoothly from one sentence to the next?

3. Would the active or passive give readers a more consistent and appropriate point of view?

The “Objective” Passive vs. I/We

Some scholarly writers claim that they should not use a first-person subject, because they must create an objective point of view. Contrary to that claim, academic and scientific writers use the active voice and the first-person I and we regularly. It is not true that academic writers always avoid the first person I or we.

Passives, Characters, and Metadicourse

When acedemic writers do use the first person, however, they use it in certain ways. Look at the verbs in the passages above. They fall into two groups:

Some refer to research activities: examine, observe, measure, record, use. Those verbs are usually in the passive voice: The subjects were observed…

Others refer not to the subject matter or the research, but to the writer’s own writing and thinking: cite, show, inquire. These verbs are often active and in the first person: We will show… They are examples of what is called Metadiscourse.

Metadiscourse is language that refers not to be the substance of your ideas, but to yourself, your reader, or your writing: your thinking and act of writing: We/I will explain, show, argue, claim, deny, suggest, contract, add, expand, summarize… your readers’ actions: consider now, as you recall, look at the next example… the logic and form of what you have written: first, second; to begin: therefore, however, consequently

Metadiscourse appears most often in introductions, where writers announce their intentions: I claim that…, I will show…, We begin by…, and again at the end, when they summarize: I have show…, I have argued…What distinguished those actions is that only writer can lay claim to them.

On the other hand, scholarly writers generally do not use first person to describe specific actions they performed as part of their research, actions that anyone can perform: measure, record, examine, observe, use. Those verbs are usually in the passive voice: The subjects were observed… We rarely find passages like this: To determine if monokines elicited an adrenal steroidogenic response, I added preparation of…

Most writers would use a passive verb, were added, to name action that anyone, not just the writer, can perform: To determine if monokines elicited a response, preparation were added. A passive sentence like that, however, can create a problem: its writer dangled a modifier.

You dangle a modifier When an introductory phrase has an implied subject that differs from the explicit subject in the following or preceding clause. For example: (X) To get a better grade, my essay has been revised twice. (O) To get a better geade, I have revised my essay twice.

Noun+Noun+Noun (The long compound noun phrase)

It can distort the match that reader expect between the form of an idea and the grammer of its expression. Strings of nouns feel lumpy, so avoid them, especially ones you invent.

Revise compound nouns of your own invention; revise, especially when they include nominalizations. Just reverse the order of words and find prepositions to connect them: early childhood thought disorder misdiagnosis misdiagnose disordered thought in early childhood If, however, a long compound noun includes atechnical term in you field, keep that part of the compound and unpack the rest.

Clarity and the Professional Voice

Every group expects its members to show that they accept its values by adopting its distinctive voice. For Example:  The apprentice banker must learn not only to think and look like a banker, but also to speak and write like one.

Too often, though, aspiring professionals try to join the club by writing in its most complex technical language. When they do, they adopt an exclusionary style that erodes the trust a civil society depends on, especially in a world where information and expertise are the means to power and control.

Apart from theoretical conceptualization there would appear to be no method of selecting among the indefinite number of varying kinds of factual observation which can be made about a concrete phenomenon or field so that the various descriptive statements about it articulate into a coherent whole, which constitutes an ‘’adequate,’’ a ‘’determinate’’ description. Adequacy in description is secured insofar as determinate and verifiable answers can be given to all the scientifically important questions involved. What questions are important is largely determined by the logical structure of the generalized conceptual scheme which, implicitly or explicitly, is employed.

We can make that clearer to moderately well-educated readers

Without a theory, scientists have no way to select from everything they could say about subject only that which they can fit into a coherent whole that would be ‘’adequate’’ or ’’determinate’’ description. Scientists describe something ‘’adequately’’ only when they can verify answers to all the questions they think are important. They decide what questions are important based on their implicit or explicit theories.

And we could make even it more concise

Whatever you describe you need a theory to fit its parts into a whole. You need a theory to decide even what question to ask and to verify their answers.

Here’s the point When you read or write a style that seems complex, you must determine whether it need to be so complex to express complex ideas precisely. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Accordingly, a style should be as complex as necessary, but no more.

If you detect a needlessly complex style when you read, look for characters and actions so that you can unravel for yourself the complexity the writer needlessly inflicted on you. When you write, use the same tools to detect when you are guilty of gratuitous complexity and, if you are, revise. When you do, you follow the Writer’s Golden Rule: Write to others as you would have others write to you.

Summing Up

1.Readers judge prose to be clear when subjects of sentences name characters and verb name actions. Fixed S. V. Variable Character Action

2.If you tell a story in which you make abstract nominalizations its main characters and subjects, use as few other nominalizations as you can:  A nominalization is a replacement of a verb by a noun, often resulting in displacement of characters from subjects by nouns. When a nominalization replaces a verb with a noun, it often displaces characters from subjects.

3.Use a passive if the agent of an action is self- evident:  The voters reelected the president with 54 ％ of the vote. The president was reelected with 54 ％ of the vote

4.Use a passive if it lets you replace a long subject with a short one:  Research demonstrating the soundness of our reasoning and the need for action supported by this decision. This decision was supported by research demonstrating the soundness of our reasoning and the need for action.

5.Use a passive if it gives yours readers a coherent sequence of subjects: By early 1945, the Axis nations had been essentially defeated; all that remained was a bloody climax. The German borders had been breached, and Germany and Japan were being bombed around the clock. Neither country, though, had been so devastated that it could not resist.

6.Use an active verb if it is a metadiscourse verb:  The terms of the analysis must be defined. We must define the terms of the analysis.

7.When possible, rewrite long compound noun phrases:  We discussed the board candidate review meeting schedule. We discussed the schedule of meetings to review candidates for the board.

Thanks for your attention.