English Composition I

1. University of El Salvador
Western Multidisciplinary Campus
Foreign Language Department
English Composition I
Handout 4
Responsible: Professor Darlene Mata
Unit 1 – topic 4: Overloaded, Padded and Empty Sentences
 Overloaded Sentences
Avoid sentences that contain more information than the reader can easily
follow. Instead, divide such sentences into more manageable pieces that can be
easily grasped.
Weak- Because researchers interested in speech synthesis and automatic
recognition need to find rules that improve intelligibility of speech, they need to
study the psychological determinants more closely before they can solve what
has become a complex set of questions.
Improved- Researchers interested in speech synthesis and automatic
recognition need to find rules that improve intelligibility of speech.
Consequently, they need to study the psychological determinants more closely
before they can solve what has become a complex set of questions.
Weak- In response to the leak history of the pipe made of 304-L stainless
steel, a work request, IJ-117, was prepared by Plant Maintenance in August of
1989 to replace approximately 55 feet of the HLD 304-L pipe--the entire
segment running from the "cells" area to the point in the drainage system that
turns south to exit the building--with pipe made of a different material, Iconel
600 (see Figure…).
Improved- Plant Maintenance responded to the leak history of the stainless
steel pipe (304-L) with a work request in August 1989 to replace a 55-foot
section with Iconel 600 pipe. This section made up the entire pipe segment
running from the "cells" area to a point where the drainage system turns south
to exit the building (see Figure N).
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2. Length is often blamed for sentences going awry, but the problem is more
complex than that because a long sentence sometimes works. Take Mark
Twain’s beautiful example:
‘At times he may indulge himself with a long one [sentence], but he will make
sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of
its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won’t be a sea-serpent with
half of its arches under the water; it will be a torch-light procession. (57 words)
Long sentences can become confusing when we put too much information in
brackets, overuse ‘which’ clauses or make our subjects too wordy.
 Overloading sentences with information in brackets
We sometimes try to make our sentences convey too much information by
embedding extra information in brackets. Take this sentence from a Westpac
credit card brochure about international travel insurance.
‘A cardholder becomes eligible for this Overseas travel insurance when, before
leaving Australia on an overseas journey, they have a return overseas travel
ticket, and A$500 of each of their prepaid travel costs (i.e. cost of their return
overseas travel ticket, and/or airport/departure taxes; and/or their prepaid
overseas accommodation/travel; and/or their other prepaid overseas itinerary
items) have been charged to the cardholder’s eligible credit card account.’ (71
words)
I think it means that you have to have a return ticket before you leave the
country and pre-pay at least $500 of your overseas travel expenses, including
your ticket, with your credit card.
If you take out the information in brackets, the sentence is a bit easier.
‘A cardholder becomes eligible for this Overseas travel insurance when, before
leaving Australia on an overseas journey, they have a return overseas travel
ticket, and A$500 of each of their prepaid travel costs have been charged to the
cardholder’s eligible credit card account.’
Although clearer this sentence still needs rewriting because the word ‘each’ is
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3. confusing, given that the items in brackets are followed by ‘and/or’. Also it
raises questions: for example, if I pay for my accommodation with cash or
another credit card, am I still eligible for insurance?
The information in brackets could have been an additional sentence using
bullet points.
Overseas travel expenses include the costs of:
• Return ticket and airport departure taxes
• Prepaid overseas accommodation, travel and itinerary items
Trying to tweak this sentence still doesn’t work because the thinking behind it
isn’t clear. Sometimes you just have to start again and work out what you are
trying to say.
 Overloading them with too much information in ‘which’
clauses
Take this example that I found in the Australian Financial Review during the
GFC.
‘For example, the conversion of former US investment banking giants Goldman
Sachs and Morgan Stanley into commercial banks (which have tougher capital
requirements) had the unintended consequence of squeezing funding to hedge
funds – which in turn has exacerbated their dumping of assets across world
markets.’ (45 words)
I have highlighted ‘which’ as causing the sentence overload, but it has an
additional problem. I am not sure who ‘their’ relates to (unclear antecedent) –
who’s doing the dumping?
 Overloading the subject with too many words
Sentences that have a lengthy subject (nominal group or noun phrase) are
difficult to read.
[The young male rats that were from the same colony as the rats with
symptoms of the disease, but which do not show sign of the disease at this
stage of their development] were used as the control group.
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4. Rewritten to make the subject shorter:
[The symptom-free young male rats] were used as the control group. These rats
were from the same colony as the rats showing symptoms of the disease.
What other causes of overloaded sentences have you noticed?
Writing is less about putting words on a page or screen than it is about putting
thoughts in order.
Our job as writers is to clarify the world and ideas for our audience. That
means illuminating—showing something that was hidden before—and
simplifying—sorting out ideas, phenomena and events that are tangled and
difficult to understand.
Consider these tangled ideas. By the way, I invented none of the examples I’m
about to show you. They’re all taken from published documents or from former
students. In either case, the writers should never have let anyone else see
them.
• We were informed of your government’s new initiative to link young
people about to graduate from post-secondary education with small
businesses who need skilled employment candidates by a teacher from
Saskatchewan who is a member of our team of educators that is
championing the inclusion of health literacy into high-school curricula.
How many ideas are crammed into that one sentence? Yes, it’s grammatically
correct, but it has 5 dependent clauses, 9 prepositional phrases and 51 words.
No, I’m not going to give an eighth-grade lesson in grammar or parsing
sentences. I’m saying that’s too much for any audience. There are at least 14
different, if linked ideas in it.
You have learned a sentence is a single complete thought. While it makes sense
to link thoughts together, when you get a chain long enough to wrap around
your winter tires, it’s too long.
How about this one:
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5. • As he suggests, “the binary logic” of many sociological texts encourages
an Eurocentric analysis that conceptually constructs an a historical,
apolitical social science which avoids an analysis of the political and
economic exploitation that is associated with racial and ethnic prejudice
and discrimination.
That one starts with “binary logic,” goes through sociology, history, politics and
social science, some other ideas and ends up with discrimination. It’s like
wandering in a college campus and wondering how you got to the garbage room
when you started in the computer lab and were hoping to get to the caf.
I call these “overloaded sentences”—they just cannot support that much
information. By the time the readers get to the end of a sentence like that,
they’ve forgotten the beginning.
Here’s one from fiction:
 Had he known that Ralph had managed to break into the apartment and
wire it quickly before he had followed the three of them to the video
store, Andy might have given a small bit of thought to the intelligence of
listing a good many words that clearly indicated his belief that his
pursuers were idiots, but he didn’t, much to the displeasure of his
unseen audience.
 Organizational problem
Sentence overload is caused when you have so much to say and you try
to get it all out at once. The solution: get a GRIP on your sentences as
well as your whole document:
• Goal: what are you trying to accomplish with these thoughts? What do
you want your readers to do after reading?
• Reader: whom are you saying it to? What do they already know, what do
you want them to know?
• Idea: of all the ideas in that long, convoluted sentence, which is the most
important?
• Plan: what other information does the audience need to understand your
main point? How is this other information related to the main point?
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6. Now, organize it. Put the most important idea first. If two ideas are equally
important, make each one the main part of a separate sentence. Then use less
important ideas as dependent clauses or qualifying phrases.
 You don’t always have to repeat qualifying information:
• Notably, policymakers in India have made financial inclusion a priority,
according to speaker LD Patel, Deputy director of the XXX of India,
where all Indian institutions have been requested by the central
regulatory department of India to formulate board approved educational
inclusion plans for the next three years.
The Indian government has asked all Indian institutions to develop
plans to bring education to the poorest communities within three years,
said LD Patel, Deputy Director of the XXX.
Sometimes, it seems as if the writer changed his or her mind halfway through
the sentence:
• It highlights the growing importance and recognition of healthy
nutrition continues to gain in Canada and internationally with the
availability of more resources, information and good practices to help
develop strategic priorities, research, evaluation and programs.
The importance of healthy nutrition is gaining recognition
internationally. There are more resources, information and good
practices available to help develop strategic priorities, research,
evaluation and programs.
• Based on last year’s results, and since the target audience is very well-
defined and the product was developed for, and extensively tested with
that audience, we expect the following results in 2010/11:
The product was developed for a specific audience and tested with it.
Based on those results, we can expect the following in 2010-2011:
From fiction:
• Tristan blinked, his head moving up, not realizing he was so tired,
normally he was more than energized and almost always ready to go.
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7. This actually combines several problems common in fiction from new
writers: more detail than the reader needs or wants, and telling instead
of showing. I would amend it to:
Tristan’s head nodded involuntarily. “What’s up, Tristan?” Annabella
asked. “You’re usually ready to go.”
Challenges:
Here is a couple that I received from students. My challenge to you is to turn
these into readable prose. Leave your responses in the Comments box, below.
Have fun!
1: Management is pleased to be receiving a positive response from employees
about the relocation of headquarters from Toronto to Calgary, although there
are some concerns about the merger due to the cultural differences between the
Calgary employees versus those from Toronto, so in response to growing
concerns, management is taking action in order to ensure co-operation and
compatibility between teams.
2. I recently completed a kitchen remodel and on July 2 I ordered by telephone
double-glazed, oak French doors from Quality Doors, Inc, that were required
for this job, which when they arrived on July 25, my carpenter told me were cut
too small, measuring total of 2.31 square metres wide instead of 2.33 square
metres wide, so my carpenter offered rebuild the opening but charging me for
his time $455.50 because I waited three weeks for these doors, and my clients
wanted them installed immediately.
 Improving Empty and Padded Sentences
A paragraph should not include sentences that do not say anything worth
saying. These sentences are sometimes called empty sentences. The first
sentence in this pair is empty; the second is not:
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8. Cairo, Egypt, is a large city because it is so vast.
Cairo, Egypt, is a city of about eight million people.
Nor should a paragraph include sentences that use unnecessary words. These
sentences are sometimes called padded sentences. The first sentence in this
pair is padded; the second is not:
It is, of course, a fact that Cairo is located on the River Nile.
Cairo is located on the River Nile.
Empty & Padded Sentences Exercise
Revise each padded sentence. Cut unnecessary words and phrases.
1. School was closed due to the fact that there was a snowstorm.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
2. Last summer, I had the good luck to go during the summer to a mountain
camp in the mountains of New York State.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
3. What I wanted to say was that the baseball game in being broadcast right
now on channel 24 as a matter of fact.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Revise each empty sentence. Remove the empty sentence.
1. The principal’s speech couldn’t be heard by those of us in the back row. We
were unable to hear what she was saying. Later, I learned the topic was “Goals
for our Music Program.”
______________________________________________________________________
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9. ______________________________________________________________________
2. About 55 percent of all the voters voted against the corporation’s
management. That’s more than half of all voters. It just goes to show you how
foolish people can be.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What happens when we overload sentences?
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10. ______________________________________________________________________
2. About 55 percent of all the voters voted against the corporation’s
management. That’s more than half of all voters. It just goes to show you how
foolish people can be.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What happens when we overload sentences?
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