Yes, it’s Back to Concision, Again (23 of 30): Answer to ‘Circling Paragraph’ from 22 of 30
Remember, we are now looking at concision in a bigger way: by looking at the whole paragraph (rather than just at the sentence level). Let’s keep looking at the paragraph from the previous post, and cut all the circling stuff out of it. Let's make the pattern much simpler and easier to understand, like the above picture. The original paragraph is ...
Space missions can help scientists find any approaching asteroids which may hit the earth. We cannot imagine what a lethal disaster would be caused when an asteroid hit the crowded city. Maybe the dinosaur extinction sixty-five millions years ago can be a good example. The dinosaurs were made extinct by a tremendous blast and the greenhouse effect which was due to a comet crashing into the earth.
[67 words]
I will cut this to ....
Space missions can help scientists detect approaching asteroids which may hit the earth. Such an event caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
[22 words]
Huh? I cut so much out! Why? Because the middle part ...
We cannot imagine what a lethal disaster would be caused when an asteroid hit the crowded city. Maybe the dinosaur extinction sixty-five millions years ago can be a good example. The dinosaurs were made extinct by a tremendous blast and the greenhouse effect which was due to a comet crashing into the earth.
... follows the classic middle of just circling around ‘asteroid crashing’. The sentence ...
We cannot imagine what a lethal disaster would be caused when an asteroid hit the crowded city.
... doesn’t means much, or go anywhere, and ....
Maybe the dinosaur extinction sixty-five millions years ago can be a good example.
... is using too many words to introduce an example. The sentence ...
The dinosaurs were made extinct by a tremendous blast and the greenhouse effect which was due to a comet crashing into the earth.
... repeats ‘dinosaurs’ and ‘commet crashing into the earth’, and give unnecessary detail, so all we have left from the paragraph is ...
Space missions can help scientists detect approaching asteroids which may hit the earth. Such an event caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
[22 words]
67 words cut to 22. Wow! That first paragraph had so much repetition and unnecessary stuff. But now, let’s consider how to continue this sentence, and build a real paragraph in a strong and convincing way. Tip 16 of my book (‘Include Specific Support’) mentions a simple way to think, and we will look at that in the next post.
By the way, you can learn more about me at www.aisielts.com .
留言列表
