The rules listed below are needed for successful revision of the sentences that follow.

Sentence Revision Rules                                                            Back to Table of Contents

1. Use active voice frequently:

Use of the active voice places the subject of the verb as the doer of the action. Active Voice uses the traditional Subject-Verb-Object sequence, familiar to English-speakers. The Passive Voice, however, creates a different sequence: The subject of a verb in the Passive Voice is the receiver of the action. The Passive Voice also requires a prepositional phrase if you wish to mention the doer of the action. For example:

Active Voice--"Jack hit the ball." [Jack is the doer of the action.]

Passive Voice--"The ball was hit by Jack." [The subject, "ball," receives the action.]

Use of the Active Voice rather than the Passive Voice assists the writer in this manner:

a. Active Voice usually places first in the sentence that which is most important to the meaning of the sentence.

b. Active Voice generally uses fewer words than Passive Voice.

c. Active Voice employs the Subject-Verb-Object sequence with which English speakers are most comfortable.

Note: The Passive Voice does have a use in English. If the writer wishes to emphasize "ball" in the above example, then the Passive Voice is appropriate. The choice of Voice depends on what the writer wants to emphasize and thus place first in the sentence. The writer must also understand that in using the Passive Voice, the sentence will be longer than a sentence employing the Active Voice.

2. Use dynamic verbs rather than cumbersome nouns:

Wordiness also comes from creating nouns out of verbs (known as nominalization);subsequently, this tendency leads to weak verbs. In addition, overuse of nouns instead of verbs also creates needless prepositions. Avoid sentences that contain phrases like "is made", "is done", "is performed", "is conducted", "is undertaken" and "is achieved" (all in Passive Voice). Such phrases often make the sentences unnecessarily long. Consider the following examples:

A. Original-- "Simulation of the program is done."

Revised-- "The program is simulated."

B. Original--"Implementation of the program is performed."

Revised-- "The program is implemented."

C. Original-- "Optimization of the output is achieved."

Revised-- "The output is optimized."

3. Create strong verbs:

A writer should use strong verbs that imply a precise action. Avoid overusing verbs like "make" "come" "take" "is" "are" "was" "were" which often have a general meaning rather than a precise one. Ask yourself what is the most important in the sentence and place it first. Selection of a verb with vibrant meaning will permit the witer to avoid using excessive nouns to say what a single verb will convey. Consider the following examples:

A. Original-- "The purpose of this study is to understand the underlying factors."

Revised--"This study attempts (aims) to understand the underlying factors."

B.Original--"The committee made a decision on what to do next."

Revised:"The committee decided what to do next."

However, passive voice is occasionally preferred when the doer of the action is unknown or unimportant (or less important than the action itself).

4. Avoid sentences beginning with "It" and "There":

Another form of wordiness and ambiguity is sentences beginning with "There" and "It."Unless "It" refers to a specific noun in the previous sentence, omit "It".

5. Delete redundant and needless phrases:

Many technical documents are cluttered with redundant or needless phrases that can be either deleted entirely or expressed more simply. The writer should try to avoid needless and redundant words and phrases that only make the sentence lengthy.

6. Ensure that pronoun references are clear in meaning:

Readers become confused when the sentences they are reading contain pronouns that do not have a clear antecedent. An antecedent is what a pronoun is referring to. Many problems can arise when a pronoun does not refer to a clear antecedent.

7. Create sentences parallel in structure and meaning:

Parallelism in writing means that all parts of a sentence must have a similar construction.For example:

a. Not Parallel--"Jack enjoys swimming, running, and to cycle."

b. Parallel--"Jack enjoys swimming, running, and cycling."

8. Eliminate modifier problems.

As a word, phrase, or clause, a modifier describes another word, phrase, or clause. The reader becomes confused when the modifying clause or phrase is not next to the word it modifies. This often creates a gap between the author's intended meaning and what is actually written.For example:

a. "We just rent the house." (We do not own it.)

b. "We rent just the house." (We do not rent the garage.)

a. "The lamp stands next to the sofa that I usually study by." (Do I 'study by' the sofa?)

b. "The lamp that I study by stands next to the sofa." (I 'study by' the lamp.)

9. Double check for faulty comparisons and omissions:

Sentences that contain comparisons that are illogical and incomplete create further ambiguity. Writers must also recognize words that have been carelessly omitted. For example:

a. "I like her better than Tine." (vague)

b. Solution #1. "I like her better than Tina does."

c. Solution #2. "I like her better than I like Tina."

10.Avoid unnecessary shifts in a sentence:

Another obstacle to clarity is unnecessary shifts in subject, tense, voice and mood.This is a very large area to cover here. VERB TENS CONSISTENCY is probably the greatest problem. Decide in advance whether you will write in the Present/Present Perfect Tenses or the Past/Past Perfect Tenses.For example:

a. "I am ready to go. I have been ready for two hours." (Presnt/Present Perfect Tenses).

b. "I was ready to go. I had been ready for two hours." (Past/Past Perfect Tenses).

11. Changing Prepositional Phrases to Adjectives

The prepositional phrase is used either as an adjective or an adverb. When used as an adjective, it often can be changed to an adjective. Doing so, allows the reduction in length of the sentence. For example:

a. "Exercise on a continual basis is healthful."

b. "Continual exercise is healthful."

Writing Suggestions                                                                    Back to Table of Contents

1.Be direct, clear, and logical in your writing.Reading your paper aloud or having someone read your paperaloud will often assist in determining any flaws in the paper.

2. Place the most important subject and/or clause at the beginning of the sentence so as to make the main idea or primary emphasis more accessible to the reader.

Why is the main idea or primary emphasis occasionally unclear in English sentences written by non-English speaking authors? Problems occur when an exessive number of modifying words, phrases, or clauses overwhelm the basic subject-verb-object arrangement.Prepositional phrases can often be converted to single adjectives; subordinate clauses may often be reduced to appositive phrases, participle phrases, or infinitive phrases. The main focus of the writer should be to say what is intended by using verbs that are descriptive, adjectives and adverbs that effectively describe, and nouns that are accurate.

3. Avoid the overused tendency of placing prepositional and other phrases which indicate time (or even adverbs which indicate time) at the beginning of the sentence.

Placing prepositional or other phrases (as well as conjunctive adverbs) that indicate time are placed at the beginning of a sentence so as to inform the speaker or the reader of the appropriate tense, the reult is often redundant because English verbs indicate the time of an action. Consider the following example of this colloquial habit: "Now, the company is planning to expand production." Emphasizing "Now" at the beginning of the sentence is only redundant since the sentence is already in present tense.

4. Avoid the over-used tendency of placing prepositional and other phrases that indicate comparison at the beginning of the sentence.

Non-English speaking writers often place prepositional phrases that indicate comparison in front of the main idea. That which the main idea is being compared to (not the idea itself) is often placed at the beginning of the sentence. In doing so, the main idea is pushed towards the end of the sentence. Consider the following example of this colloquial habit: "Compared to dogs, cats are nice." Instead, one should say, "Cats are nicer than dogs."

5. Avoid constant prefacing of the main idea by stating the purpose, condition, location or reason first.

Non-English speaking writers often preface the main idea by first stating the purpose, condition, location or reason. The logic behind this colloquial habit is that introducing or directly stating the main idea would be too direct and potentially offensive. However, such an introduction before every main idea (or prefacing the fact) may leave the reader with the impression that the author is indirect, as this tendency pushes the main idea towards the end of the sentence. Words and phrases such as the following, when used excessively, in front of the main idea, tend to confuse and distract:("In order to" and "For the sake of") condition ("If" and "When") location ("In", "At", and "From") or reason ("Due to", "Because", and "Since").

6. Use transitional phrases to connect two sentences or two paragraphs.

Although placing the main idea towards the beginning of a sentence is a good idea, always doing so would confine the sentence so the paper seems to lack any connection between sentences and paragraphs. To connect sentences, writers often rely on conjunctive adverbs (e.g. "Thus", "Therefore", "Consequently", and "So"). Additionally, the writer must place prepositional and other phrases that indicate transition at the beginning of a sentence. A transitional effect is desired when attempting to make a connection with the previous sentence or paragraph. A balance between placing the most important emphasis at the beginning of a sentence, along with occasionally creating a transitional effect, allows the writer to directly and smoothly express the desired content. The key is to be concise and varied with sentence beginnings.

7. Avoid long sentences by limiting each sentence to preferably one or two primary ideas and using semi-colons when needed.

English sentences by non-English speaking writers are often too long and sometimes appear awkward in that the main idea is often lost. Recall point #5 where prefaces that denote purpose, reason, location and reason are often added before the main idea as a form of introduction. Adding a preface at the beginning of each sentence obviously lengthens the sentence. When translating into English, many writers are often afraid to separate a sentence between the main and supporting clause because it is thought that by dividing the main idea into two sentences, the reader my not see the connection in the formation of a complete idea. The result is a long, awkward sentence. An alternative method is the use of a semi-colon, seldom used among non-English speaking writers. The key to success is to write concisely, using as few words as possible.

8. Avoid First Person; Third Person is more objective.

First Person usage is so common that many writers are unaware of this colloquial habit. The writer tends to lose objectivity in the manuscript with overusing First Person; in addition, the main idea becomes lost in the sentence. Emphasis of a personal opinion such as "We believe," "We can infer," "We conclude," "We recommend," and "We postulate," however, can be used. In contrast, using the Third Person removes a feeling of subjectivity or personal bias that the First Person style has. Moreover, Third Person creates an objective environment so as to allow the readers to assess the quality of the manuscript.

Revise the Following Sentences

Write for Conciseness…                                                                        Back to Table of Contents

Possible Answers

1.All inputs are combined by engineers to create a product.

2.Three phases of analysis are included in their approach.

3.A statistical comparison is made of the proposed procedures with Taguchi's two-step procedure.

4.A more efficient combination among the factor levels is achieved when the control factor is continuous.

5.Factors causing saturation include temperature, volume and weight.

6.The Taguchi approach entails minimizing the average quadratic loss.

7.There have been a considerable amount of studies on robust design.

8.There is a significant difference in control levels for the parameter settings.

9.The committee made a decision on the question as to using an individual mouse or a trackball would be more productive.

10.As a general rule, mice and trackballs serve the function of being both used for the same reason.

Editing for Clarity…                                                                              Back to Table of Contents

1.The number of banks charging their customers ATM user fees are increasing.

2.The majority of the committee feel that the right decision was made.

3.Time as well as temperature are important during the batch process.

4.The professor told the student that he needed to finish early.

5.The graduate assistant conducted the experiment. Time and the amount of pressure applied to the conductive material were essential to success; however, it lasted too long.

6.Different criteria often conflict with each other, which implies that simultaneously optimizing different objectives is relatively difficult.

7.The Taguchi approach combines experimental design techniques with quality loss considerations and the average quadratic loss is minimized as well.

8.Engineers must either combine all inputs to create the output of a product or the parameter values must be set so that the product's performance remains unaffected.

9.The notions can be simply modified by implementing the following procedure:

10.Select the levels that maximize SN. Estimate the slope of the linear regression model. The control factors and the adjustment factors must be identified. Identify the control factors that significantly affect the variables.

11.The target must be adjusted as much as possible.

12.To simulate the program, precautions must be taken by the engineer.

13. As a graduate student, my academic advisor gave me much valuable advice.

14. Before examining all of the available options, the decision was made to initiate the plan.

15. The proposed procedure corrects dimensional distortion and errors better.

16. Our company prefers that organization more than their institute.

17. The new company is as competitive, if not more competitive than, existing ones.

18. When a student is preparing for an examination, you should get plenty of rest before the test.

19. The professor prefers using a calculator to estimate costs instead of using a pen because they can more easily add numbers.

20. The graduate student recorded the data and then writes a summary report.

Use Active Voice Frequently…                                                              Back to Table of Contents

1. Modification of the heuristics was made by Lacksonen and Enscore (1993) to solve the dynamic layout problem.

2. Minimization of total operating costs is achieved by a planning horizon.

3. A description of the layout cost evaluation method is made by introducing the following notations in this section.

4. Precise measurement of neural networks by practitioners is a heavy emphasis of computer vision systems.

5. Numerical analysis is performed in this study on the effects of theinflation rate and the deterioration rate on stock inventory.

6. The manager can be assisted by the proposed model so that the order size can be precisely determined.

7. The temperature is increased by uncontrollable factors, as indicated in the experimental results.

8. The proposed model can be further extended in a future study so that more realistic assumptions can be incorporated.

9. A more detailed description of the three design types is provided in Kackar and Phadke (1991).

10. The GRG algorithm may be difficut for users with limited statistical training to implement.

11. The server is notified by the website manager that retrieval of the data must be performed by the account holder.

12. Verification of the data accuracy is required by the site manager so that quality control within a factory is ensured.

13. Consumer preferences are markedly affected by advertising.

14. Various options are generally made in user choice.

15. Provision of textbook materials should be offered by the instructor.

Using Verbs Instead of Nouns…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. Difficulty is encountered in explanation of the method to inexperienced engineers owing to its computational complexity.

2. Simulation of the program is performed in this study.

3. A slight increase occurs in the deposition rate.

4. Knowledge of how the variables are distributed is not re- quired by novice engineers.

5. Not only is the variability of the control factors considered by the proposed procedure, but implementation of related tasks is performed by that same procedure.

6. A recommendation of using iterative least squares (ILS) as a simple method for analysis of censored data was made by Schmee and Hahn (1990).

7. Normalization of operations is achieved by a simple calculation of the scores.

8. Improvement of the condition is achieved by variation of the control factors.

9. A recommendation is made here that the program be simulated by the engineer.

10. The operator made a reservation of the ticket for me.

11. The system performs an assignment of the weights to the variables.

12. The next phase performed an examination of the unknown factors. 98. Assessment of a student's willingness to study by an instructor is possible through the closely examination of his or her academic performance.

13. Solution of environmental problems is heavily dependent on responsiveness of the local community to governmental legislation.

14. Promulgation of accurate information to the public can not be done by conventional approaches.

Proper Pronoun Reference…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. The machines can process the family of parts, ensuring that it reaches full capacity.

2. All parts have the same transportation costs, which limits the effectiveness of traditional approaches.

3. The team attempts to optimize the thickness by minimizing the variation and maintaining the desired mean. This accounts for why the effects of process parameters on the silicon nitride deposition process are studied.

4. In previous literature, they do not examine the feasibility of incorporating PS into SA to develop a more efficient stochastic optimization approach at such times as the two variables are constant.

5. The department chairman told the research assistant that she needed to perform the simulations in the event that the experiment fails.

6. Deterioration is set to a constant fraction of the stock level, which implies that shortages are not permitted and the demand rate is assumed to decrease exponentially.

7. When a machine is assigned to a manufacturing cell, it attempts to reduce the total cost.

8. The posterior objective concentrates on balancing intracell and intercell machine loadings, which allows us to formulate the cell formation problem as follows.

9. Factors C, D, F, G and H significantly affect the response average. This indicates that F can be adjusted based on the target value.

10. You should maintain a constant cutting speed even though the effective diameter of the cutting changes during machining.

11. In most previous investigations, they do not consider the simultaneous effects of deterioration and inflation.

12. A numerical example demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method, which further indicates that the total system cost will be incorrectly estimated if the deteriorating effect and/or inflationary effect are neglected.

Creating Strong Verbs…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. No significant difference in production occurred between the two factories.

2. The industrial output was not significantly different between the two age groups.

3. The temperature is only a little affected by the fluctuation of the value.

4. An increase in parameter k causes the optimal ordering quantity to decrease.

5. The larger the TOPSIS value, the better the product quality is implied.

6. The larger the target, the higher the accuracy.

7. The engineer must make an adjustment of the parameters so that accuracy can be ensured.

8. This article makes a comparison of several industrial strategies in order to ensure market competitiveness.

9. Modification of the process by the engineer is required so that completeness can be ensured.

10. Networks are prevalent in every part of society.

11. Network topology is a reference to how the computers are physically attached to each other.

12. The board of directors must take action based on its authority.

Parallel Structure and Meaning…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. It is a fact that engineers select an appropriate variable and the transformed observations are treated as though they are normally distributed with a constant variance.

2. Those methods neither require previous knowledge of how the variables are distributed nor are the censored data stipulated to be available.

3. The procedure for analyzing singly censored data in a replicated experiment is as follows:

Step 1: Distinguish the experimental results as the uncensored (complete) data and the censored (incomplete) data.

Step 2: The relationship between the two values must be found by performing regression analysis.

Step 3: Estimate the two variables.

Step 4: The estimated censored data must be ranked.

Step 5: Find the regression models for response avaerage and standard deviation for each trial.

Step 6: The factors that significantly affect the response average and standard deviation must be identified.

Step 7: The optimal factor/level combination must be determined.

4. The derived model provides an extension of an earlier concept [1] and helping industrial managers in determining a feasible number of replenishments.

5. Experimental design is used in this method to arrange the design parameters and noise factors in the orthogonal arrays and computing the signal-to-noise (SN) ratio based on the quality loss for each experimental combination.

6. The relative importance of each response can be transformed into a fuzzy number through means of the establishment of a formal scale system that can be used to convert linguistic terms into their corresponding fuzzy numbers and to express the relative importance of each response by the linguistic term.

7. The Taguchi approach provides a combination of experimental design techniques with quality loss considerations and that the average quadratic loss is minimized.

8. The conventional approach happens to be cumbersome, complicated and wastes too much time.

9. The two-step procedure not only identifies those factors that significantly affect the signal-to-noise (SN) ratio, but also the levels that maximize SN are found.

10. Logethetis (1988) proved that strong non-linearities exist and the B technique was also recommended for use by him.

11. This work not only proposes an effective procedure based on the rank transformation of responses and regression analysis, but also the singly censored data are discussed.

12. The following steps describe the procedure:

Step 1: Calculate the normalized decision matrix.

Step 2: The weighted normalized decision matrix is calculated.

Step 3: The ideal and negative-ideal solution is determined.

Step 4: Calculate the separation measures.

Step 5: The relative closeness to the ideal solution is calculated.

Step 6: The preference order is ranked.

Overuse of IT and THERE…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. It is possible that the price of a laser printer is higher than that of an ink jet printer.

2. There is a need for limitation of the number of users by the systems manager.

3. It is important that cooperation with each other be the focus of the study group.

4. It could happen that a decision to cancel the exhibition is reached by the committee.

5. There is a necessity for an agreement on the delivery terms by both parties.

6. It is necessary that negotiations on the final conditions be undertaken by both sides immediately.

7. It is critical that consideration is made by the systems manager on the current status of the program.

8. It is crucial that assessment of the control strategy be performed by the site manager.

9. It is imperative that arrangement of the class schedule be done by the academic advisor.

10. It is not necessary for the coordination of the tasks to be the responsibility of the department manager.

11. There is no need for the responsibility for all the assignments to be that of the team leader.

12. There is no need for corrections of the tests to be done by the teacher.

Modifier Problems…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. To succeed in the laboratory, diligence is essential due to the fact that many experiments are necessary.

2. Before submitting a graduate school application, the institution should be selected.

3. Pressing the start button prior to operations, the machine turned on.

4. When simulating the environment, the outcome yielded some surprising results.

5. The program contains the proposed itinerary that was implemented yesterday.

6. The container held by the experimenter with many leaks must be replaced.

7. To select the levels of the design parameter, the effects of the noise factors must be minimized.

8. Analyzing the SN ratios, the optimal settings can be determined.

9. When taking an examination, the questions should be answered as thoroughly as possible.

10.To excel in academics, determination is necessary.

11.While conducting an experiment, the timer went off and Jeff took the sample from the oven.

12.Taking into account all of the circumstances, the decision on how to deal with the issue was reached by the academic committee.

Redundant and Needless Phrases…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. It is well known that a majority of Taguchi method applications have the capacity for addressing a single-response problem.

2. It may be said that computers have the ability to incorporate kinds of equipment in order that the user is in a position to interact with the computer.

3. It is a fact that the network cards have the opportunity to be upgraded to meet the connection speeds in the event that the campus upgrades 100Mbps hubs and routers.

4. It is evident that the college is able to make an informed decision through means of understanding the capabilities and cost difference for both 10Mbps and 100Mbps.

5. It has been found that any error that might happen will be more destructive in light of the fact that XYZ applications is in a position to make direct calls to the hardware.

6. It has long been known that the logon between the workstation and NT server is encrypted considering the fact that an eavesdropper actually wants to gain the ID and password.

7. It is our opinion that Windows 95 is for all intents and purposes a good operating system in a situation in which the user has many requirements.

8. It is possible that the error affects the necessary requirements when attempting to ascertain the location of the variables.

9. It is noted that 10Mbps network cards are basically becoming obsolete for the reason of their slow data transfer rates.

10. It is interesting to note that monitoring features in most cases inform the user provided that a performance bottleneck occurs.

11. It is the operator who makes a determination of the questions as to the phase should be implemented.

12. There is a guideline that makes a provision of the necessary requirements.

Faulty Comparisons and Omissions…                                                        Back to Table of Contents

1. When a student is preparing for an examination, you should get plenty of rest before the test despite the fact that intelligence plays a major role.

2. The graduate student recorded the data and then writes a summary report.

3. Turn on the machine if conditions are such that a hazard might occur and the valve should be closed.

4. It is noted that the academic advisor asked the graduate student if thepaper was completed and is it ready to send to the journal for review.

5. It is interesting that the laboratory manager arranged the meeting and the discussion was led by him.

6. It is possible that the researcher completes the experiment when you can not obtain any more valid results.

7. The architect gives each program its separate address space and, in doing so, prevented an error that causes one program to fail from interfering with other programs running concurrently.

8. The consumer realizes that the trackball is the ideal choice to make when they purchase a user interface of this type.

9. Execute the necessary commands provided that they are valid and the program should be reviewed.

10. The manager instructed the employees to arrange the final details and also is the final program ready to print.

11. The speaker commented on the importance of participating in international events and then the meeting was adjourned by him.

Unnecessary Shifts in Sentences…                                                           Back to Table of Contents

1. When a student is preparing for an examination, you should get plenty of rest before the test despite the fact that intelligence plays a major role.

2. The graduate student recorded the data and then writes a summary report.

3. Turn on the machine if conditions are such that a hazard might occur and the valve should be closed.

4. It is noted that the academic advisor asked the graduate student if thepaper was completed and is it ready to send to the journal for review.

5. It is interesting that the laboratory manager arranged the meeting and the discussion was led by him.

6. It is possible that the researcher completes the experiment when you can not obtain any more valid results.

7. The architect gives each program its separate address space and, in doing so, prevented an error that causes one program to fail from interfering with other programs running concurrently.

8. The consumer realizes that the trackball is the ideal choice to make when they purchase a user interface of this type.

9. Execute the necessary commands provided that they are valid and the program should be reviewed.

10. The manager instructed the employees to arrange the final details and also is the final program ready to print.

11. The speaker commented on the importance of participating in international events and then the meeting was adjourned by him.

Combining Conciseness and Clarity…                                                        Back to Table of Contents

1. Modification of environmental technologies transferred from abroad for the local industrial sector is performed by the research institute.

2. Accurate prediction of the boundary parameters by mathematicians is of heavy emphasis.

3. An outline of how to install the software program is made in the following section.

4. A thorough description of the environmental impact on the ozone layer was made by Smith (1985).

5. Contributing factors to rainforest depletion include overpopulation.

6. Awareness of external factors that contribute to industrial pollution must be known by the urban planner.

7. No significant variation between the two temperatures occurred.

8. It is impossible to forecast all potential workplace hazards.

9. There is no need for the assessment of the production capacity of the factory floor to be undertaken by the foreman.

10. Carpooling can be arranged by means of a designated driver if conditions are such that commuters to the same workplace live in close proximity to each other.

11. A definite decision about future plans should not be made until a major breakthrough in product development occurs.

12. It is well known that telecommunications technologies happen to be expanding rapidly for the purpose of satisfying the growing consumer demand.

                                                     Back to Table of Contents