Wednesday, February 29, 2012

#3. Reading The Elements of Style - Day 3

Today's study notes:


Rule 7. A participial phase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.


Example 1. Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children.
--> He saw a woman, accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road.


Example 2. Without a friend to counsel him, the temptation proved irresistible. 
-->  Without a friend to counsel him, he found the irresistible.

If you don't follow this rule your sentence will sometimes look ridiculous. But I often do that! :/



Rule 8. Divide words at line-ends, in accordance with their formation and pronunciation.


A. Divide the word according to its formation: know-ledge (not knowl-edge), de-scribe (not des-cribe. WHAT?? I've been writing like that... X/)

B. Divide "on the vowel": edi-ble, ordi-nary, espe-cial, presi-dent

C. Divide between double letters, unless they come at the end of the simple form of the word: Cincin-nati, refer-ring, but tell-ing.



Rule 9. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic.
Yep, my professors emphasize this.


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