"Awk"/Awkward sentences

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Avoiding Awkward Sentences

1. Read Aloud! – if a sentence doesn't sound right to you, then it probably isn’t

   1. Buddy Up - When we read our own writing we often read what we MEANT to say instead of what we've actually said. Having a friend read your work is a great way to identify awkwardly phrased sentences.

2. Eliminate Words! – be on the look out for “wordy words” or repetition in your writing

3. Slow Down! – work on a hard sentence slowly; if you feel like it’s ―getting away from you,‖ stop, take a moment, and figure out exactly what you’re trying to say before you start writing

Sample Awk Sentences

The first step is finding an awkward sentence. The three sentences below were all marked by

professors or teachers as awk—let’s see if we can figure out why.

1. As far as I’m concerned, because of the fact that a situation of discrimination continues in the field of medicine, women have not at the present time achieved quality with men.

2. The best teachers help each student become a better student both academically and emotionally.

3. College students have a lot of pressure on them being high achievers.

Fixing Awkward Sentences

Let’s look at each of the three example sentences, indentify the problem with each of them, and

give that problem a name.

1) As far as I’m concerned, because of the fact that a situation of discrimination continues in the field of medicine, women have not at the present time achieved quality with men.

This sentence was marked awk because it is WORDY. There are too many unnecessary words

and phrases (―wordy words‖) in the sentence (all of them are underlined). Phrases like ―as far as

I’m concerned‖ (or ―all things considered‖ or ―last but not least‖) clutter your writing and make

it confusing and awkward. By writing the sentence more concisely, we can make it smoother:

Because of continuing discrimination in medicine, women have not yet

achieved equality with men.

2) The best teachers help each student to become a better student both

academically and emotionally.

This sentence was marked awk because it is REPETITIVE. The word ―student‖ is repeated

twice. Replacing it with a different word will make it less awkward:

The best teachers help each student to grow both academically and

emotionally.

3) College students have a lot of pressure on them being high achievers.

This sentence was marked awk because it has a DANGLING MODIFIER. A dangling modifier

is a grammatical term for a phrase in a sentence that does not clearly connect to a specific part

of the sentence, and is unclear as a result. In this example, we are not sure whether college

students are high achievers and therefore have lots of pressure on them—or whether they have

pressure on them to be high achievers. Do you see the difference? Try this instead:

Being high achievers, college students have a lot of pressure on them.

Sample Paragraph

SAMPLE PARAGRAPH

Another of Smith's ideas was the method of differentiation. The university re-opened after the plague in 1667. Smith was elected to a minor fellowship, and awarded a major fellowship after he received his Master's Degree. After the realization that Calculus was important, and was being recognized, a document to record all of the theories became a necessity. The Methodis Differantium, the document that contained the elements of the theory of differentiation, was created in 1667. Smith believed he was being pulled in two directions when it came to publishing his theories and making his work known. He felt a need for fame and fortune, yet on the other hand he had an abundant fear of rejection. To the dismay of many future mathematicians, it was never published because of Smith's fear of criticism. Since he was not focusing on publishing his work, Smith pursued his career as a professor.

The so-called paragraph above is an utter mess. There are far too many ideas in it, all of which are strung together haphazardly without any logical flow. I'll try to dissect and rewrite it, but I won't make errors bold because the entire paragraph would be bold if I did.

First, let's pick out the different topics being addressed:

• • the method of differentiation

  • the university re-opening after the plague

  • Smith's ascension through the university ranks

  • the need of a document detailing differentiation, which was eventually created

  • Smith's mental state, desires and fears

Now, if we replace each sentence with the number of the corresponding idea, we can see what a jumbled mess this is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3.

Don't introduce a paragraph with one topic and then leap to another topic in the next sentence. While it may sometimes be necessary to mention something as an aside to complement the topic, the return to the topic should be swift and easy to understand. Don't bounce around within the paragraph as this student has done.

Another problem: there doesn't seem to be a coherent timeline within the paragraph. Did the university re-open in 1667, or was the plague in 1667? Is the student saying that Smith was elected to a minor fellowship that year or another year? Similarly, when did the major fellowship and Master's Degree come in? It's unlikely to have all happened in one year, though it is possible. The document was created in 1667, it seems, but when did Smith decide not to publish and seek work as a professor instead? Also 1667? It sounds like that was a very busy year for poor Smith!

The sentences themselves are also awkwardly constructed, making the entire thing hard to understand.

I'll make some assumptions regarding the confusing date information. Here is how this information should have been presented:

Smith's ideas on the method of differentiation were gaining recognition in the mathematical community, which made it necessary for him to produce a document detailing all of his theories on the subject. Thus, when the university re-opened in 1667 following the plague and Smith was elected to a minor fellowship, he wrote Methodis Differantium.

Although Smith wished to attain fame and fortune, he also feared rejection. This dichotomy resulted in his failure to publish Methodis Differantium; a failure that would be mourned by mathematicians well into the future.

Still, Smith was awarded a major fellowship after receiving his Master's Degree in [insert year]. Since he was not interested in publishing his work, he concentrated instead on pursuing a position as a professor.

Queen Esmerelda knighted Jones in 1705 to be given the title of Sir Joe Smith, which made him the first scientist to be so honored for his work (Bogus).

The phrase "to be given" is awkward here. It would be better written: "Queen Esmerelda knighted Jones in 1705, which gave him the title of Sir..."

Who else could be honoured for Smith's work other than Smith? It should say: "...which made him the first man to be honored for scientific work."

There probably should be a page number listed in the citation.

Jones had a main idea of analytic geometry.

What does this mean? Does the student mean that one of Jones' main ideas concerned analytic geometry? Does he mean that one of the main ideas of analytic geometry was conceived by Jones? Or does he mean something else entirely? This makes little sense and is very awkward.

Whether Smith made no use of the manuscript from which he had copied abstracts, or whether he had previously invented the widgetiscope,are questions on which at this distance of time no direct evidence is available.

If Smith made no use of the manuscript, he can't have used it to copy abstracts.

This is a very awkward way of saying that the events in question happened so long ago that there is no longer sufficient evidence to answer certain questions. It would be better written:

Questions as to whether Smith made further use of the manuscript from which he copied abstracts or whether he had previously invented the widgetiscope are rooted so far in the past that it is impossible to gather sufficient direct evidence to provide answers.

This is still a bit awkward. It's best when broken up into smaller sentences:

There are still questions as to whether Smith made further use of the manuscript from which he copied abstracts or whether he had previously invented the widgetiscope. Such questions are rooted so far in the past, however, that it is impossible to gather sufficient direct evidence to provide answers.

Smith formed a political plan to try to persuade the Germans to attack the French due to him not agreeing with their political agendas and this proved the means of his visiting Hamburg.

"Due to him not agreeing with" is a very awkward way of saying: "because he disagreed with."

The second bolded part should be a separate sentence.

"Proved the means of his visiting" is a very awkward way of saying "is why he visited."