Sentence Combining: Discovering Your Options

 

            Working as a group, combine the information from the smaller sentences in each cluster below into a single sentence. Then, generate as many different single sentences as you can. Your group should aim for around seven sentences. Freely reword, delete words, or streamline information, experiment with punctuation choices,  but try not to lose the gist and details of the shorter sentences.  At least one of your sentences should be free of passive voice.By the end you should have a range of sentences that, while saying the same thing, manage to say it with varying levels of sophistication and nuance.

 

Round 1

  1. Everyone in society is affected by media.

2.   Some of the people most affected by media are girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen.
3.  Girls in this age range are the most likely to be affected by what they see on television or in movies.
4. Prevalent media images are responsible for unrealistic expectations concerning everything from body image, to relationships, to expectations about income and happiness. 

 

Round 2

  1. Don DeLillo is the author of White Noise.
  2. White Noise was first published in 1984.
  3. The novel is a meditation on fear in American life.
  4. The novel seems eerily prescient in post-September 11 America.

 

Round 3

  1. I was born in a small town.
  2. The town was one hundred miles from the nearest city.
  3. Coal mining was the big industry in my town.
  4. I was the only one in my family who did not go down into the mines.

 

Round 4

  1. In the sphere of cable TV, Utah was the dogged pioneer.
  2. Its anti-indecency laws were repeatedly invalidated, but it kept trying.
  3. In 1981 Utah passed the first of two laws prohibiting any distribution “by wire or cable” of “any pornographic material.”
  4. HBO successfully challenged the law, persuading a federal court that the First Amendment does not permit bans on constitutionally protected “indecent” speech outside the context of broadcasting.

Round 5

  1. To be or not to be
  2. That is the question.
  3. Whether ‘tis nobler in the minds of men to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them?

 

 

 

 

Passive Voice: or Why It Is not a good idea to be always using words

that are going to slow your sentences down and that are going to bore the fur off your readers before they are even finished reading the first sentence.

 

Passive voice is the default mode for writing.  It is easy.  It is simple.  It is what most people are most comfortable with. 

 

In other words, the number one cause of boring, wordy sentences is passive voice.  Take that sentence for example.  I could have said “Passive voice causes boring  wordy sentences” instead, thus both using fewer words to say the same thing and substituting the active verb “cause” for the passive form of “to be”. 

 

And that would be great.  But I don’t have to stop there.  I can also say “Boring wordy sentences result from the use of passive voice.”  In that case I’m emphasizing the wordy sentence.  In the previous example I wanted to direct the reader’s attention to what passive voice results in.  Changing word order and deciding on the focus of the sentence  often helps eliminate passive voice.

 

The other problem with passive voice is that it obscures agency.  (Translation: Passive voice obscures agency.)  Writers use passive voice when they don’t want to be implicated in a situation or have an idea attributed directly to themselves.  Thus its frequent use in legal or official documents. For example:

 

I was driving my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.

 

The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.

 

My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired because she was up late the night before doing her homework.

 

The policeman was in the process of arresting the suspect when he was distracted by the police cruiser that was pulling up behind him in order to assist him and, because he was distracted, he was unable to notice that the suspect was disappearing into the bushes.

 

Sometimes passive voice is called for though.  If you want to emphasize a state of being – particularly a static one – then you may want passive voice.  If you want to slow a sentence down on purpose, especially if your goal is to show the passivity of the subject of your sentence then by all means use it.  The point is not to eliminate all forms of the verb “to be” from your writing.  Rather you should be making conscious decisions about when and where you will deploy this particular mode.