Revising for Clarity

Question 1

What is the royal order of adjectives?

Answer 1

1.Determiner (a,an,four,her,our,those,that,several,some)
2. Observation (beautiful, expensive, gorgeous, dilapidated, delicious)
3. Physical description (size(big, little, enormous), shape(long-stemmed, short, square), age(old, antique, young), color(red,black))
4. Origin (Italian, English, American, Thai)
5. Material (silver, silk, wooden)
6. Qualifier (touring, hat, hunting, basketball)
7. Noun

E.g.,
A beautiful old Italian touring car
An expensive antique silver mirror
Four gorgeous long-stemmed red silk roses
Her short black hair
Our big old English sheepdog
Those square wooden hat boxes
That dilapidated little hunting cabin
Several enormous young American basketball players
Some delicious Thai food

Question 2

What is the benefit of having short sentence in persuasive paper?

Answer 2

Occasional short sentence is a power technique to create emphasis.

Question 3

What is the average sentence length in an academic journal?

Answer 3

21-23 words per sentence.

Question 4

What is the average sentence length in popular magazines, user manuals or procedural instructions?

Answer 4

15-18 words per sentence.

Question 5

What are some patterns for general language?

Answer 5

Aspect, basically, big/little, clear/unclear, good/bad, important, interesting, kind of/sort of, large/small, more or less, number of/lots of, partly, perfectly, situation, somewhat, thing, this, to a certain extent, to some degree, type, very much/very little, way

Question 6

What is the difference between jargon and specialized language?

Answer 6

Depends on the expertise of the audience; jargon is for outsider/novices, specialized language is for professionals.

Question 7

What is doublespeak?

Answer 7

Deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words; make truth sound more palatable or intentional ambiguity or inversions of meaning.

Question 8

How should we introduce acronyms?

Answer 8

Provide the words the first time they are used but do not define common acronyms such as IBM or DNA.
Limit the number of acronyms to 2 or 3 per sentence.
Repeat the words acronyms replace periodically, limit their usage in introductions, conclusions, abstracts or executive summaries.

Question 9

What are some tips on noun strings?

Answer 9

Break up noun strings with prepositions or turn nouns into verbs.
Use hyphens to connect closely related words or use acronyms.
Eliminate unnecessary words in the string.
No more than 4/5 nouns/adjectives in a string.

Question 10

What are phrasal verbs?

Answer 10

Verbs contain prepositions; goes on, turn over, hand in, hand back, throw away, check over, lay off.

Question 11

What are tips on prepositional phrases?

Answer 11

Replace phrasal verbs with verbs(goes on=continue).
Change noun to verbs
Make shorter noun strings containing 3 or 4 nouns.
Break long sentences into shorter ones.
No more than 2/3 ofs in sentences.

Question 12

What are some tips on punctuation?

Answer 12

Always place a comma before introductory prepositional phrases.
Always place a comma between two complete sentences joined by coordinating conjunctions(and,but,or,yet,so).

Question 13

What is wrong with the following?
A precision full-wave rectifier is constructed using precision diodes and a square-wave generator is assembled using a Schmitt trigger.

Answer 13

A precision full-wave rectifier is constructed using precision diodes, and a square-wave generator is assembled using a Schmitt trigger.

Question 14

What is wrong with the following?
By participating more in scheduling release data’s can be planned so that projects dovetail.

Answer 14

By participating more in scheduling, release data’s can be planned so that projects dovetail.

Question 15

What are patterns for punctuation?

Answer 15

Subject/verb/object, and subject/verb/object.
Introduction, subject/verb/object.

Question 16

What is wrong with the following?
One example of the effects of such a lack of effective strategies, project orientation, and interdepartmental cooperation is our low moral.

Answer 16

Prepositional phrases:
For example, because we lack effective strategies, project orientation, and interdepartmental cooperation, our moral is low.

Question 17

What is wrong with the following?
The emission requests cannot be accommodated at this time because the emission inventory is neither sufficiently advanced nor intended to allow for temporal variation or for identification of a rational for each occurrence of high emission rate and/or ambient concentrations.

Answer 17

Prepositional phrases:
At this time, the emission requests cannot be accounted because the emission inventory is not sufficiently advanced and does not allow for temporal variations. Moreover, the inventory does to permit identifying the cause of each high emission rate and/or ambient concentration.

Question 18

What is wrong with the following?
Another component needed for the completion of the project is the reassignment of project team members to the next project and the rewarding of team members for their role in the project.

Answer 18

Prepositional phrases:
Another component needed to complete the project involves reassigning project team members to the next project and rewarding them for their role in the project.

Question 19

What is wrong with the following:
More detailed analysis, using Cepstrum technique, is applied based on computation of the power spectrum of the logarithm of the power spectrum of the vibration data obtained from accelerometer on the truck frame in different positions.

Answer 19

Prepositional phrases:
A more detailed analysis uses Cepstrum technique to compute the power spectrum as a logarithm of the various vibration data measured by accelerometer at different positions on the truck’s frame.

Question 20

What is the pattern for prepositional phrases?

Answer 20

in…on..of..of..of..of…at..

Question 21

What is wrong with the following?
Because the predicted ambient total suspended particular concentrations met Department of Environment, Lands and Parks’ Level B ambient air quality objectives, a further evaluation was not required.

Answer 21

Noun strings:
Because the predicted total concentrations of ambient suspended particulates met the level B ambient air quality objectives mandated by the Department of Environment, Lands and Parks, a further emulation was not required.

Question 22

What is wrong with the following?
Team members must understand that behaviour oriented activities are just as important as task oriented activities.

Answer 22

Noun strings:
Team members must understand that behaviour-oriented activities are just as important as task-oriented activities.

Question 23

What is wrong with the following?
The wind pattern was further illustrated following a recovery boiler electrostatic precipitator fire at the site in 1988.

Answer 23

The wind pattern was further illustrated following fire in the electrostatic precipitator of a recovery boiler at the site in 1988.

Question 24

What is pattern for noun strings?

Answer 24

Adjective noun noun noun adjective noun

Question 25

What is wrong with the following?
Ensuring better problem solving and decision-making skills by non-senior management can avoid the next crisis situation.

Answer 25

General language:
Ensuring better problem solving and decision-making skills by non-senior management can avoid the next crisis.

Question 26

What is wrong with the following?

Approximately 60% of our work is of a repeat nature with only minor variations. This repeat work is specifically of the inspection and quality control type and does not require higher education.

Answer 26

General language:

Approximately 60% of our work is of a repetitious inspection and quality control that does not require higher education.

Question 27

What is wrong with the following?
The culture of the organization is inconsistent with the rest of the world. The company values long-term employees. Provides generous remuneration, benefits, pensions, etc. The organization is too steep. It needs some flattening. The current organization encourages CYA and non-communication. This needs to be addressed. Failures rewarded, fence-sitters punished.

Answer 27

Short sentences:
The culture of the organization is inconsistent with the rest of the world. The company values long-term employees by providing generous remuneration, benefits, pensions, etc. However, the organization is too steep and needs some flattening. The current organization encourages CYA and non-communication, which needs to be addressed by accepting failures and punishing fence-sitters.

Question 28

What is wrong with the following?
Market conditions are very unstable. Business reacts quickly to the price of pulp and paper. Capital spending by pulp and paper mills is known to be cut off immediately that pulp prices drop. Engineering projects can be stopped with little notice. The technology is relatively stable.

Answer 28

Short sentences:

Market conditions are very unstable as indicated by how quickly business reacts to the price of pulp and paper. Because mills cut off capital spending immediately when pulp prices drop, engineering projects can be stopped with little notice. The technology is relatively stable, however.