Chapter 3 - Individual and collaborative styles for management writing. In this chapter, the following content will be discussed: Five useful sentence patterns, what to do about weak verbs, what to do about passive verbs, what to do about a heavy noun style,. | 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM Five useful sentence patterns: 1. The Actor Action Object sentence. Example: The balance sheet showed a significant loss. 2. The -ing or -ed opening with a comma. Example: Rifling through his papers, the salesman found the missing receipt. 3. The -ing beginning without a comma. Example: Joining Ralph meant everything to Sarah. 4. The middle break. Example: Traffic snarled in front of the plant; Mr. Todd had been playing police officer again. 3. The guide-word beginning. Example: Reluctantly, the manager ordered the plant closed. 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM What to Do about Weak Verbs Not: The promotion of creative employees is the policy of this company. Instead: This company promotes creative employees. Convert weak verbs into strong verbs by asking “Who did what?” 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM Not: The account was handled carelessly. Instead: Jack Bevins handled the account carelessly. Notice that passive verbs often leave out the subject of the sentence. What to Do about Passive Verbs 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM Not: The unification of companies will prove beneficial to the establishment of financial arrangements more conducive to solvency and profitability. Instead: Merging our companies will help solve our money problems. Change heavy nouns to simple nouns, inserting verbs where possible. What to Do about a Heavy Noun Style 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM Not: Please write a minorities opportunity evaluation report. Instead: Please write a report evaluating opportunities for minorities. Change some nouns to verbs, inserting prepositions where possible. What to Do about Noun Clusters 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM What to Do about Slow Sentence Beginnings Not: There are two financial packages suited to our needs. Instead: Two financial packages suit our needs. Put important words at the beginning of the sentence. 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM What to Do about Monotonous Style Monotony: A meeting was held last Thursday. It was decided that the milling machine was beyond repair. A budget was established for rebuilding the machine. This repair should take approximately three weeks. Variety: At last Thursday’s meeting, managers approved a budget for the repair of the milling machine. Barring unforeseen problems, repairs should take three weeks. Readers prefer short sentences that can be read easily. 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM What to Do about Awkward Repetitions Not: We reviewed the benefits package. The benefits package provided for most of the health needs of employees. Instead: We reviewed the benefits package and determined that it provided for most of the health needs of employees. Instead: We reviewed the benefits package, which provided for most of the health needs of employees. Change repeated nouns to synonyms, inserting verbs where possible. (or) 5/14/2020 5:44:12 AM What to Do about Too Many Prepositional Phrases Not: We ran an advertisement in a trade journal in May for a manager of the sales division at our subsidiary in Wisconsin. Instead: In May we ran a trade journal advertisement seeking a sales manager for our Wisconsin subsidiary. Avoid long strings of prepositional phrases by converting them into two- or three-word descriptive phrases.
