Purpose, the end you're aiming at, determines strategy and style. Strategy involves choke—-selecting: particular aspects of a topic to develop, deciding how to organize them, choosing this word rather than that, constructing various types of sen¬tences, building paragraphs. | For more material and information please visit 1 CONCISION 195 Adverbs and adjectives ought to link as directly as possible with what they modify. The writers of the first two examples above are afraid of adverbs. Many people are perhaps made timid by uncertainty about the - 7 ending. Unnatural really describes acted but instead of directly connecting it to that verb the writer hangs it on the empty word way in an unnecessary prepositional phrase. Similarly the adverbial phrase in a brief statement can be rendered with equal clarity and far more economy by briefly. The other three sentences labor under ponderous adjectival phrases or clauses when much briefer construction will do. Use Participles WORDY It leaves us with the thought that we were hasty. CONCISE It leaves us thinking that we were hasty. WORDY This is the idea that was suggested last week. CONCISE This is the idea suggested last week. Wordy modification often results from failing to use parti -ciples. In cases like the first example an abstract noun thought which requires a preposition and an article can be replaced by one word thinking. The second example here shows how to prune an adjectival clause consisting of a relative word that a linking verb was a participle suggested or other predicative term. By dropping the relative word and the linking verb you can move directly from the noun to the participle or predicative word . Sometimes an entire adverbial clause can be cut back to the operative participle. WORDY Because they were tired the men returned to camp. CONCISE Tired the men returned to camp. And sometimes an independent clause or sentence can be trimmed For more material and information please visit 196 THE SENTENCE WORDY These ideas are already old-fashioned and they are not frequently met with. CONCISE These ideas are already old-fashioned infrequently met with. WORDY The women of the settlement would gather together at one home to work on the .
